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Sir John Frmklin 



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1 



THE NEW PLUTARCH 



SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 



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THE NEW PLUTARCH: Lives of those who have made 
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G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 27 and 29 West 23D Street, New York. 



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SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 



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BEESLY, M.A 



Heroic sailor-soul. " — Tennyson 




NEW YORK 
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PREFACE 



THIS book is based mainly on narratives of two 
expeditions to the Polar Seas by Sir John 
Franklin himself, and on a monograph — of which he 
is the subject — written by M. de la Roquette. For 
the latter — which I fonnd to be in part identical 
with the article on Franklin in the old edition of 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica — I am indebted to 
Miss Sophia Cracroft, Sir John Franklin's niece, who 
has most generously given me other assistance, for 
which I here tender her my heartiest thanks. A 
few paragraphs have already appeared in articles 
contributed by me to the Cornhill Magazine. Gener- 
ally, I have made use of the well-known w r orks of 
Sir John Richardson, Captain Sherard Osborne, Dr. 
Kane, Admiral M'Clintock, &c. 

The maps, it is hoped, will enable the reader to 
follow the narrative with ease. 

A. H. BEESLY. 

February, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Chap. I. — A Survey of Arctic History. page 

English Polar Expeditions — Threefold object of Explorers— Three 
Eoutes to the Pole — English, American, Russian, and other 
Explorations — The North Pole and North Polar regions, . 9 

Chap. II. — Franklin's Early Career. 

Franklin's Parentage, Boyhood, and Youth — Enters the Navy — At 
Copenhagen — With Captain Flinders — Wrecked — In Battle 
against the French — At Trafalgar — At the Sieges of Flushing 
and New Orleans, . . . . . .17 

Chap. III. — Franklin's First Expedition. 

Sooresby's Letter to Sir J. Banks — Expeditions of Ross and 
Buchan — Franklin with Buchan — Franklin's First Expedition 
to the Coppermine River — Its objects — His Comrades — Ship- 
wreck imminent — Hudson's Bay — Cumberland House — An 
Indian Davenport, . . . . . .21 

Chap. IV. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). 

Departure from Cumberland House — Snow Shoes — Lack of Pro- 
visions — Collection of Stores, Boats, Guides, &c. — Fort Provi- 
dence — Visit of Akaitcho — His Proceedings — Preliminary 
Excursions to the Coppermine River — The Cold — News from 
Home — Misconduct of Weeks — Winter Occupations — Back's 
Visit to Fort Providence, . . . . .36 

Chap. V. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). 

Misconduct of St. Germain — Difficulties with Akaitcho — The 
Start from Fort Enterprise— " Bloody Fall" — Esquimaux — The 
Indians desert — Wentzel sent back — Boat Voyage along the 
Coast — Point Turnagain, . . . . . 59 

Chap. VI. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). 

Return by Land — Terrible Suffering — The Canoes broken— Famine 
— Fishing Nets abandoned — Tripe de Roche — Back sent ahead — 
Richardson's Gallantry — Credit and Vaillant break down — 
Hood's Illness— Heroic Self-sacrifice of Richardson and Hepburn 
— Perrault breaks down — Death of Fontano — Franklin finds 
Fort Enterprise deserted — Richardson rejoins him there, . 73 

Chap. VII. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). 
Richardson's Narrative — Murder of Hood — Michel shot — Fearful 
Sufferings at Fort Enterprise — Death of Peltier and of Samandre 
— The Indians come — The Party reach Akaitcho's Camp — Back's 
Adventures— Death of Beauparlant — Return to England, . 94 



Contents. 



Chap. VIII. — :Franklin's Second Expedition. PAai4 

Honours conferred on Franklin — His First Marriage — Parry's 
Congratulations — Preparations for an Expedition down the 
Mackenzie — Richardson and Back volunteer — Preliminary Ex- 
peditions of Franklin and Richardson, . . . .112 

Chap. IX. — Franklin's Second Expedition (continued). 

Fort Franklin — Franklin's Letter — Winter Occupations and Pre- 
parations — The two parties under Franklin and Richardson set out, 125 

Chap. X. — Franklin's Second Expedition (continued). 

Franklin's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esqui- 
maux — Good Conduct of Augustus — Voyage to Return Reef — 
Fogs— Return to Fort Franklin, . . . .138 

Chap. XL— Eranklin's Second Expedition (continued). 

Richardson's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esqui- 
maux — Richardson's opinion of Franklin — He reaches the 
Coppermine River and Fort Franklin — Second Winter at Fort 
Franklin — Dog Rib Traditions — Return to England, . .157 

Chap. XII. — Franklin in Tasmania. 

Honours conferred on Franklin — His Second Marriage — Appointed 
Governor of Tasmania— His Letter thence — His and his Wife's 
Beneficence — Return Home, . . . . .178 

Chap. XIII. — Franklin's Last Expedition. 

Anecdotes of Parry, Franklin, and Brougham — Instructions for 
another Polar Expedition — The Erebus and Terror — Fitz- 
james — Last sight of the two Ships — Rewards offered for their 
Relief by Government — Their Track in 1845— Corn wallis 
Island circumnavigated — Winter at Beechey Island — Deaths 
of Brain e, Hartnell, and Torrington — Failure of Pemmican — 
Departure from Beechey Island in 1846 — Victoria Strait entered 
— Winter in the Pack — Gore's Visit to King William's Island in 
1847— Death of Franklin— Slow Drift down Victoria Strait- 
Second Winter in the Pack — The Ships abandoned — Rae's news 
of the fate of the Expedition — M'Clintock's Discovery of the 
Record at Point Victory — Esquimaux Accounts — Conjectures 
as to what had happened — Geographical results of the Franklin 
era — Franklin's Character, . . . . , 190 

Index. . . . . ♦ . , .235 



SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 



CHAPTEE I. 

A SURVEY OF ARCTIC HISTORY. 

English Polar Expeditions — Threefold object of Explorers— Three 
routes to the Pole — English, American, Russian, and other Explo- 
rations — The North Pole and North Polar regions. 

THE earliest venture of England in the Arctic Seas 
was made so far back as Alfred's reign. That was 
when Venice " held the gorgeous East in fee," and if 
an English or French ship entered the Mediterranean, 
it was at once seized by the Venetians, and the sailors 
sold as slaves. The produce of India was then brought 
by land to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and 
carried in Venetian ships to Europe. It was to break 
this monopoly of trade that we tried to find another 
passage there ; but wa now know that this was an idle 
dream, and that the Venetian monopoly was broken, not 
by us, but by the Portuguese when they doubled the 
Cape of Good Hope. And it is curious — and may afford 



10 Sir John Franklin. 

some consolation to those who think that the national 
spirit has been cankered by money-grubbing — to notice 
that, whereas the early Arctic expeditions (even when 
the whole world was lit up by a flame of ardour which 
the discovery of new worlds and practically a new 
literature had kindled) were often due to commercial 
rivalry, and much the same sort of emulation as that 
which prompts the annual tea-race from China, it is the 
spirit of honour and the love of science which have been 
the mainsprings of those of our own times. We do not 
dream of shores sown with gems, or of a short cut to 
the treasure-lands of the East. No fabled glories of 
Cathay allure our imaginations. Thirst for knowledge, 
national enthusiasm, the hope of rescuing some lost 
expedition — these are the more noble motives which 
have spurred us on, gilding with some rays of romance 
a prosaic century, linking together a knot of men by 
ties as generous as those of King Arthur's Table, and 
giving the lie to Burke's lamentation that the age of 
chivalry is dead. 

There are three avenues to the unknown region 
round the Pole — one east of Greenland, through the 
seas on either side of Spitzbergen; another west of 
Greenland, through Davis' Straits, Baffin's Bay, and 
Smith's Sound ; and the third by Bering's Straits. And 
whatever has been the object of the various expeditions 
sent by these three routes, they sought to attain that 
object in three different ways, which, in fact, constitute 



Threefold Object of Polar Exploration. 11 

three chapters into which all Arctic history may be 
divided. Either they have sought for a North-West 
Passage — that is, for a passage from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific by the north of North America ; or for a North- 
East Passage — that is, for the same passage by the 
north of Norway and Siberia; or for a North Polar 
Passage — that is, for the same passage straight across 
the Pole. Whencesoever they started, they have all, it 
need hardly be said, for many years aimed at one goal 
— the straits which since 1728 have borne the name of 
Bering. As for the North Pole, it is of course merely 
a name. If we imagine a string passed through the 
globe as through an apple, each end of the imaginary 
string is a Pole; and whether there is water at the 
North Pole or land, no one knows. But out of the 
ambition to discover a North Polar Passage has grown 
up a rivalry between England and America as to which 
shall first reach the North Pole. Two of the three 
objects (for the third and fourth are practically the same) 
have been attained. Of the discovery of the North- 
East Passage little can be said here. The North-East 
Cape, doubled long since in 1742 by sledges, was 
doubled in a ship for the first time in 1879 by Pro- 
fessor Nordenskjold, who successfully accomplished 
the voyage from the Sea of Kara to Japan through 
Bering's Straits. The North Polar Passage, or the 
North Pole, has been essayed by many : on the west 
of Spitzbergen by Hudson, Poole, Eotherby, Phipps, 



12 Sir John Franklin. 

Scoresby, Buchan, Clavering, Parry, and Koldewey ; on 
the east of it by Hudson, Barendz, and Payer ; and on 
the west of Greenland by the Americans and Captain 
Nares. These, and others following these routes, have 
sooner or later come upon an impenetrable barrier of 
pack ice, and from the highest point reached some 
four hundred miles remain yet to be traversed before 
anyone reaches the North Pole. By what heroic 
efforts, at the cost of how many noble lives, England 
won the glory of having discovered the North- West 
Passage, all students of Arctic history know. 

And here it may be said that the study of that history 
is most fascinating. It grows on one just as the glamour 
of the North seems to fascinate explorers themselves, 
who, over and over again, have escaped from the jaws 
of death only to offer themselves again as volunteers in 
the same quest. It is rather a recreation than a study. 
In it you seem to come in contact with men who are 
almost all noble. Here and there a piece of villainy or 
cowardice chequers the narrative, but as a rule it is 
a record of single-hearted bravery and self-sacrificing 
endurance unsurpassed, and, perhaps, unparallelled in 
any other section of the world's annals. As mountain air 
makes a man capable of walking twice the distance he 
can ordinarily cover with half the fatigue, so the Polar 
enterprise seems to brace the explorer's morale, and 
converts him into a hero. 

With the third and last of the above-mentioned 



The Polar Area, 13 

divisions, viz., the discovery of the North- West Passage, 
the following pages are more particularly concerned, 
relating, as they will, some of the expeditions which 
paved the way to it, and its final accomplishment. The 
general result of all of them has been, that the unknown 
region round the Pole has been steadily, though slowly, 
circumscribed. An enormous area still remains undis- 
covered. But the circle has been uniformly contracting, 
and on every side wedges, as it were, have been driven 
into it of, it may be, an island in one quarter which has 
been circumnavigated, or of a mountainous shore skirted 
In another, which, though unexplored, is clearly the 
outline of a vast interior, while conjecture, almost 
amounting to certainty, enables us to picture to our- 
selves a large portion of space which the eye of man 
has never seen. The outer circle of the great Polar 
basin is formed by the three continents of Asia, America, 
and Europe. But an inner, uneven circle has of late 
been traced, which is marked off by the northern shores 
of Spitsbergen, Greenland, Grinnell Land, the Parry 
Islands, Wrangel Land, New Siberia, and Franz Joseph 
Land. It must however, be remembered, that though 
we may use the term circle for convenience, it would be 
wholly misleading if it conveyed the notion of a central 
sea round the Pole surrounded by a belt of land. 
Whether there is sea or land at the Pole itself is 
uncertain, but it seems probable that no central land- 
locked ocean exists. We are more likely to be correct 



14 Sir John Franklin. 

in imagining the unknown region to be irregularly 
broken up into great patches of ice-bound sea, inter- 
sected by water-lanes in summer, such as that between 
Iceland and Spitzbergen, or that between Bank's Land 
and Bering's Straits ; into vast tracts of ice-bound land, 
like Greenland and Grinnell Land ; and into groups of 
islands such as the Parry Islands, New Siberia, Spitz- 
bergen, and, apparently, Franz Joseph Land. 

This is the sum of the results obtained by the three- 
fold process of explorations towards the North-West, the 
North, and the North-East, mentioned above. The first 
of these fields of discovery has been occupied almost 
solely by Englishmen. In the second, also, they have 
been pre-eminent, though they have been run close by 
the Americans. In the third, the Kussians, in spite of 
recent achievements, have borne away the palm. The 
Dutch in old times, and Sweden and Norway of late 
years, have been conspicuous for their enterprise in the 
seas of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, and both these 
islands were for the first time circumnavigated in our 
day by a Norwegian seaman, Captain Carlsen. Thus 
the honours of Arctic discovery are shared by many 
nations. Englishmen discovered the North- West Pas- 
sage and the Magnetic Pole. Englishmen led the way 
to Smith's Sound. Englishmen discovered the straits 
between Nova Zembla and the mainland. Englishmen 
first sailed north of Spitzbergen. Englishmen have 
gone nearest the Pole. But the accomplishment of the 



A New Era in Polar Exploration. 15 

North-East Passage has not fallen to our lot, and both 
in brilliance and patience of discovery we are falling 
out of the race with other nations. 

One result of so many competitors filling the field 
has been that the story of Arctic enterprise has become 
as familiar as a twice-told tale. But at the beginning 
of the century it was far otherwise. The northern 
shores of America were practically a terra incognita, 
and such knowledge of them as we did possess was hard 
to discriminate from conjecture or legend. Tor nearly 
fifty years England had desisted from the search for a 
North-West Passage; and so little was known of the 
geography of the Polar regions, that even in 1818, 
Baffin's Bay, which had been discovered two centuries 
before, was supposed to exist only in the imagination of 
the man who gave that sea its name. On the maps of 
the time it did indeed exist in outline, but on some 
of them may be found a dotted line, with this inscrip- 
tion — " Baffin's Bay, according to the relation of 
William Baffin in 1616, but not now believed." All 
that we now see north of it was a blank, and from 
Fox Channel, north of Hudson's Bay, on the east, to 
Icy Cape on the west, nothing was known of the coast- 
line, much less of the group of islands since discovered 
beyond it, except at two points where Hearne and 
Mackenzie had penetrated to, or nearly to, the shores 
of the Arctic Ocean. But a blaze of light was 
suddenly to be thrown upon this unknown region, and 



16 Sir John Franklin. 

while Parry was to find an outlet from Lancaster Sound, 
and so, sailing westwards, discover Melville Island, and 
achieve a large share of the honours of the North- West 
Passage, Franklin was destined at first to co-operate 
patiently by land, adding the while to our maps all the 
coast from Keturn Eeef on the west to Point Turnagain 
on the east, and finally to complete what Parry had 
begun, and carry off the laurels which had been coveted 
for so many ages by so many brave men. A new era 
of Arctic enterprise was in short dawning, and the two 
friends were to be its heroes and pioneers. And if it is 
sad to see ourselves now dropping behind other nations 
in a noble quest, it is pleasant at least to think that of 
our past glory no man can rob us ; that, do what others 
may in the future, a splendid share has already been 
done by us, and that the discovery of the North- West* 
Passage must for ever be connected with the name and 
fame of England. To that discovery Parry and Franklin 
undoubtedly contributed more than any other two men. 
Staunch comrades in life, in death they will never be 
divided. They toiled in the same field for the same 
object, and rarely has any nation been able to boast of 
possessing two friends of such lofty, prTe, and dis- 
interested character. 



CHAPTEE II. 

franklin's early career. 

Franklin's Parentage, Boyhood, and Youth — Enters the Navy — At 
Copenhagen — With Captain Flinders— Wrecked — In Battle against 
the French — At Trafalgar — At the Sieges of Flushing and New 
Orleans. 

JOHN" FBANKLIN was born on the 16th of April, 
^ 1786, at Spilsby, a small market town of Lincoln- 
shire, distant some ten miles, as the crow flies, from the 
shores of the North Sea. His ancestors were "frank- 
lins," or freeholders, who had for many years lived in 
this part of England; but his father, Willingham 
Franklin, finding that his predecessor had mortgaged 
the family estate too deeply, determined to sell it and 
embark in business. His manly good sense was 
rewarded by a competency, and out of his large family 
of twelve children, eleven grew up and received a good 
education. Thomas, the eldest of them, succeeded his 
father in his business, and in the esteem of his neigh- 
bours. When an invasion was expected, he became 
adjutant of a troop of yeomanry cavalry, which had 



18 Sir John Franklin. 

been raised chiefly by his exertions. Afterwards, he 
was chosen lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of volunteer 
infantry. The second son, Willingham, went to school 
at Westminster, carried off at Oxford a Christ Church 
scholarship and a fellowship at Oriel, was called to the 
bar and made a judge, and died at Madras. The third 
son, James, went to India, where he rose to the rank of 
Major. His scientific knowledge, fulfilling the promise 
which his distinguished cadetship had foreshadowed, 
procured him a civil appointment, but ill health com- 
pelled him to return to England, where he died. The 
youngest son, John, was first destined for the church, 
and was sent to school at St. Ives, and afterwards at 
Louth. , One holiday, however, he and a friend took a 
walk to the sea. As yet he knew it only by hearsay, 
though, like so many English boys, he was already 
dreaming of a sailor's life. The grand sight fixed his 
fancy for ever, and, with his usual good sense, his father 
sent him to Lisbon in a merchantman, thinking that the 
experiences of a voyage would cure him of his whim. 
Hut his own steadfastness was reproduced in his son. 
When the boy came home, still bent on the naval pro- 
fession, he was no longer thwarted in his wish, but 
obtained through his father's agency a midshipman's 
berth on the Polyphemus, which led the line in the 
battle of Copenhagen on the 2nd of April, 1801. Two 
months later he was serving in the Investigator, com- 
manded by his relation Captain Flinders, who was sent 



Franklin's Professional Career. 19 : 

out to survey the coasts of Australia. The experience- 
he acquired in this cruise was invaluable, and the well- 
known naturalist of the expedition, Robert Brown, 
became his friend for life. The Investigator was 
condemned at Port Jackson as unfit for her duties, and 
Franklin sailed in the Porpoise with Captain Flinders/ 
who went home to procure another ship. The Porpoise- 
struck on a coral reef off the coast of Australia, and her 
crew, with that of her consort the Cato, ninety-four in 
number, were imprisoned for fifty days on a strip of 
sand 150 fathoms long and only four feet above water. 
Flinders, after a voyage of 250 leagues to Port Jackson 5 
in an open boat, rescued his companions, but, war having 
broken out between France and England, was un- 
generously detained as prisoner at the Isle of France 
by General de Caen. Franklin, sailing to Canton, 
procured a passage home in an East Iudiaman com-; 
manded by Sir Nathaniel Dance. On the voyage, the 
China fleet, of which Dance was Commodore, brilliantly, 
beat off a strong French squadron commanded by 
Admiral Linois, and Franklin on this occasion acted as 
signal midshipman. Joining the BelleropTwn at home, 
he filled the same post at the battle of Trafalgar with a 
gallantry which even the hero of Trafalgar could not 
have surpassed. Of those who stood near him on the 
poop, all except four or five were either wounded or 
killed. During the two years after Trafalgar he served 
under Admirals Cornwallis, Saint Vincent, and Strahan, 



20 Sir John Franklin. 

and then, joining the Bedford, remained on her for six 
years, and saw much and varied service at the siege of 
Flushing, and on the coasts of Portugal and Brazil. He 
was now a lieutenant, and in the disastrous attack on 
New Orleans commanded the boats in a fight with the 
enemy's gunboats, capturing one of them, and receiving 
a slight wound in the shoulder. For his gallantry on 
this occasion he was promoted to a first lieutenancy on 
the Forth, which, at the restoration of the Bourbons, con- 
veyed the Duchess d'Angouleme back to France. With 
the fall of Napoleon and the close of the war there was 
apparently an end also to the brilliant young officer's 
prospects of distinction. But to such souls opportunity 
is but seldom wanting long, and he who had played his 
part so worthily under such renowned captains in war 
was now himself destined to show the qualities of a 
great leader, and to reap the first harvest of a fame 
which will hardly be outlasted by that even of the 
giants of his age. 



CHAPTER III. 

franklin's first expedition. 

Scoresby's Letter to Sir J. Banks — Expeditions of Ross and Buchan — 
Franklin with Buchan — Franklin's First Expedition to the Copper- 
mine River — Its objects — His Comrades — Shipwreck imminent — 
Hudson's Bay — Cumberland House — An Indian Davenport. 

IT has been already mentioned that for a long time 
England had desisted from prosecuting the search 
for a North- West Passage. Partly, no doubt, this was 
owing to the all-absorbing struggle with Prance and 
Napoleon, which left no capacity for expenditure of 
energy in any other direction. Partly, perhaps, the 
search had come to be considered as hopeless as the 
search for the Holy Grail. But just when we emerged 
triumphant from our long agony, and the nation was 
full of the pride and daring inspired by the conscious- 
ness of great deeds, fresh interest began to be taken in 
the old field of adventure, owing to the reports brought 
home by that bold and able seaman, the whaling-master 
Scoresby. He had noticed in 1817 a great change in 
the sea west of Greenland, which, between the 74 ch 



22 Sir John Franklin, 

and 80th degrees of latitude, was for some 18,000 square 
miles entirely free from ice, so that he had twice in his 
last voyage sailed in a region which previously he had 
been able to enter only very rarely. The cause of this 
state of things he attributed to some mighty dislocation 
of the ice-fields far north, and he wrote to Sir Joseph 
Banks, President of the Eoyal Society, suggesting that 
now was the time for renewing Arctic exploration with 
reasonable hopes of success. Sir Joseph Banks, ever 
eager to second such applications, brought the matter 
before the Government, and met with warm support 
from the Secretary to the Admiralty, Sir John Barrow. 
The consequence was, that in the year 1818 two 
expeditions were sent to the North, one under Captain 
John Eoss, which was ordered to sail to Davis' Straits, 
and thence make its way westwards, so as, if possible, 
to find a North-West Passage; and the other, under 
Captain Buchan, to sail due north between Greenland 
and Spitzbergen, and, if the sea was free from ice, to 
make for Bering's Straits. A reward of £5,000, which 
had been offered by Act of Parliament in 1776 to 
anyone who sailed beyond 89 degrees of latitude north- 
wards, was now supplemented by another of £20,000 
to anyone who discovered a passage between the 
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 

... Both the expeditions were failures. Captain Eoss 
sighted Smith's Sound, but failed to explore either it 
or Jones' Sound, and when many of his crew were of 



Franklin and Parry. 23 

opinion that the passage of promise had been descried 
in Lancaster Sound, he himself by faith saw mountains 
•where there were none, and, to the disappointment of 
his officers-, steered southwards home again. Buchan, 
after touching at Bear Island, advanced beyond the 
80th degree of latitude on the north-west of Spits- 
bergen, only to find an impenetrable barrier of ice in 
his way; and one of his ships being crippled by an 
encounter with the ice, he too was forced to. return to 
England. But though the main objects of the venture 
had altogether failed, incidentally they had great 
results, for under each captain served a lieutenant 
who now obtained his first experience of the Arctic 
seas — Franklin being second in command to Buchan, 
and Parry being one of the officers who, where their 
captain could only read failure, had confidently pre- 
dicted success. Franklin, when his commander's ship 
was disabled, had begged to be allowed to proceed on 
his mission by himself, and both of them had displayed 
qualities in their respective positions which promptly 
found recognition at home. So that the very next year, 
when a new expedition was organised, which was to 
comprise an attempt by sea to find a westward outlet 
from Lancaster Sound, and an attempt by land to strike 
the mouth of the Coppermine Biver and trace the 
coast eastward, the first of the two was entrusted to 
Parry's leadership, and the other to Franklin's, in the 
hope that these young officers who had shown such 



24 Sir John Franklin. 

aptitude for the service would meet somewhere half- 
way. With the splendid success which Parry achieved 
we have nothing to do here. What Franklin did might 
almost be called failure, but it was a failure almost as 
splendid as his comrade's success ; and so heroic was 
the fortitude displayed by himself and his officers, so 
terrible the tale of the sufferings which they endured, 
that, even if the last tragedy of his life had never 
happened, his name must have lived for ever in the 
roll of those Englishmen of whom Englishmen are most 
proud. 

Franklin's mission may be best explained in his own 
words. "My instructions; in substance, informed me 
that the main object of the expedition was that of 
determining the latitude and longitude of the northern 
coast of North America, and the trending of that coast 
from the mouth of the Coppermine Biver to the eastern 
extremity of that continent." Much was left to his 
own discretion, but he was directed to take counsel 
with the Hudson's Bay Company officials, to be as exact 
as possible in scientific observations — especially of the 
Aurora Borealis — and geographical surveys, and to 
deposit at intervals on his route information which 
might be of service to Lieutenant Parry. Before leav- 
ing England, he received many useful hints from the 
Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and from Sir 
Alexander Mackenzie, the only living Englishman who 
had visited the coast to be explored. 



Franklin s Expedition. 25 

Franklin embarked at Gravesend, in the Prince of 
Wales, on the 23rd of May, 1819. With him were 
Dr. Eichardson, since so well known as Sir John 
Eichardson, who was to act as surgeon and naturalist 
to the expedition, and two Admiralty midshipmen, 
George (afterwards Sir George) Back and Bobert Hood, 
who were to assist in the general objects in view, and 
to make drawings of the land, the natives, and the 
various objects of natural history. Only one other 
Englishman accompanied these officers to their final 
destination, John Hepburn, to whose staunch heart and 
stalwart frame his companions subsequently owed their 
lives. Franklin was indeed peculiarly fortunate in his 
comrades, and at the very outset had a proof of the 
stuff of which one of them, Back, was made. When 
the ship sailed from Yarmouth he was on an excursion, 
and it was only by dint of travelling for nine days 
almost without rest that he caught up the party at 
Stromness. A ball was going on, and to it, instead of 
to bed, he went, and remained till a late hour. 

While Franklin endeavoured to procure boatmen, 
Dr. Eichardson occupied himself in botanising, and 
Hood and Back in sketching, thus training themselves 
for their respective duties. Of boatmen Franklin could 
only procure four, and these would only engage to go 
as far as Fort Chipewyan — a serious misfortune, as he 
afterwards found to his cost. On the 16th June 
Stromness was left, and when we find that Davis' 



•26 Sir yohn Franklin. 

Straits were not entered till the 25th of July, we have 
a striking example of the advantages which steam 
gives the modern navigator. On the 7th of August the 
island of Resolution was seen from the Prince, of Wales. 
.With her had come from Stromness three other ships, 
.the Eddystone, the Wear, and the missionary brig 
Harmony. A heavy fog and a dead calm came on, and 
the ships drifted with the currents which ran between 
large icebergs. At half-past twelve o'clock the fog 
suddenly lifted, and they saw, towering over the mast- 
heads, a rugged shore only a few yards off. Almost 
immediately, the ship struck violently on a projecting 
point of rock, displacing the rudder, and so rendering 
her the more helpless. A gentle swell floated her off, 
and as she struck again while passing over a ledge, the 
rudder was replaced by the blow. Though now more 
manageable, she struck a third time, and was again 
released by a swell of the sea, only to be carried forcibly 
by the current against a large iceberg. Shipwreck 
seemed inevitable, as water was being made fast, and 
on signals of distress being hoisted, the Eddystone took 
the Prince of Wales in tow, while the passengers and 
crew set to pumping, and endeavouring to find and 
stop the leak. But all efforts seemed unavailing. In 
vain the carpenters tried to stop the inrush of the 
water by forcing oakum between the timbers. The 
leak increased so fast that parties had to bail out the 
water from the hold in buckets. Then the tow-rope. 



Voyage to Hudson's Bay. 



broke, and some of the seamen had to leave the pumps 
to work the ship. They were so weary, too, that 
during the night of the 8th they relaxed their exer- 
tions, and on the 9th there w T as a depth of more than 
five feet of water in the well. 

As the day wore on they could but just keep matters 
from getting no worse, and again they felt their strength 
leaving them. So they tried thrusting in felt as well 
as , oakum, over which they nailed a plank. This had 
such an effect that by nightfall they had only to use 
the pumps at intervals of ten minutes. Then a sail, 
covered with everything that could be drawn into 
the leak by suction, was hauled under the ship, and 
secured by ropes on each side. The relief came none 
too soon, for though the elder women and children 
had been sent to the Eddystone, the younger women 
had been forced to share the labour at the pumps. 
Meanwhile the Wear had been lost sight of, and much 
anxiety was felt as to her fate. At Upper Savage 
Island the first Esquimaux was seen. On the 19th the 
Eddystone parted company off Digge's Island, being 
bound for Moose Factory, at the bottom of Hudson's 
Bay, and on the 30th the Prince of Wales reached the 
anchorage of York Flats, where a ship was already 
lying, which, after anxious examination, happily proved 
to be the Wear. Such were the perils Franklin 
encountered before he had even begun his real journey. 
They were the shadows of what was to come. 



28 Sir John Franklin. 

York Factory is distant seven miles from the Flats, 
and there Franklin went with the Governor on landing. 
It is the principal depot of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
and stands on the west bank of the Hayes Eiver, five 
miles from its month. There was at this time bitter 
commercial rivalry, and even open war, between the 
Hudson's Bay Company and the North- West Company, 
which divided with it the fur trade with the natives of 
North America. Several of the partners in the latter 
company were under detention at York Factory, and 
Franklin was gratified at finding that, if at variance 
with each other, both parties professed equal eager- 
ness to serve him. He, on his part, issued orders to his 
men not to interfere in any existing quarrels or any 
future ones — orders which had a most satisfactory 
effect. All his advisers recommended him to take the 
route to Cumberland House, where both companies 
possessed fortified houses, and thence through the chain 
of posts to the Great Slave Lake. He could, however, 
only procure one steersman for his voyage up the 
Hayes Eiver, and the boat given him by Governor 
Williams of York Factory, though one of the largest 
belonging to the Company, proved too small to hold the 
necessary stores, so that the bacon and part of the rice, 
tobacco, flour, and ammunition were left behind — the 
Governor undertaking to forward all but the bacon the 
following season, and assuring him that he could pro- 
cure tobacco, ammunition, and spirits in the iuterior. 



Expedition leaves York Factory. 29 

It was an ominous beginning to the undertaking, that 
from the very first there was a deficiency of stores. 

On the 9th of September a start was made, and the 
boat set sail up the Hayes Eiver amid a salute of guns 
and the cheers of the Governor and his people. But 
when they had sailed six miles the wind fell, and the 
crew had to begin tracking — that is, dragging the boat 
up stream from the shore by a rope to which they 
were harnessed. It was hard work, the ground being 
slippery from rain, and encumbered by fallen trees, but 
they proceeded at the rate of two miles an hour, work- 
ing in gangs, which relieved each other every hour and 
a-half. As they went along, a careful survey was made 
of the river, and Mr. Hood laid down the route each 
evening on a map. 

Leaving the Hayes Eiver, after a journey of 48 miles 
and a-half, they ascended one of its confluents, the 
Steel Eiver, which at its mouth is three hundred yards 
wide. Tracking was usually the order of the day, as 
the course of the river was too serpentine for sailing. 
The scenery was charming. Poplars with fading yellow 
leaves, dark evergreen spruces, grey willows, purple 
dog-wood, birch of a browner shade, and bright yellow 
cinquefoil, made up a wealth of beautifully-blended 
colour. But not a human being was to be seen, and, as 
the monotonous toil went on, the silence was so deep, 
that the men would start at the note of a bird. 

On September 19th they began the ascent of the 



30 Sir Jo hi Franklin. 

Hill Eiver, which, with the Fox, forms the river Steel. 
Here they met a party, the Indians of which had, with 
only a hatchet, killed on the previous day two deer, a 
hawk, a curlew, and a sturgeon. Here, too, they 
were joined by three other of the Company's boats, 
and Franklin, finding he could not keep' pace with 
them owing to his boat being so overladen, begged those 
in charge to carry part of his stores. This they 
churlishly refused to do, in spite of the Governor's 
orders that they should assist him in every way. The 
steersman, having no one in whose track he could 
follow, kept taking the wrong channel, the track rope 
broke twice, and officers and men had to leap into the 
water, and hold the head of the boat to the current to 
prevent it going down broadside and being dashed to 
pieces against the stones. The other boats now con- 
sented to carry a few boxes of stores, but only as far as 
a depot called Eock House, which is a short distance 
beyond Eock Portage. By a portage is meant a place 
where, owing to rapids and waterfalls, a boat, when 
ascending a river, has to be hauled ashore, unloaded, 
carried by land to navigable water higher up, reloaded 
there, and re-launched. This toilsome process was exe- 
cuted at this place, with this exception, that sixteen 
packages of stores were left behind at the depot to be 
forwarded the next season, as it was feared that, unless 
lightened, the boat would be stopped by the winter ice 
before it could reach Cumberland House. : . -.; 



Toils of the Route. 31 

In this weary way they toiled on through portage 
after portage, sometimes with a line hauling the boat 
up falls and rapids, which the boatmen called spouts ; 
sometimes carrying enormous loads through deep bogs ; 
sometimes in imminent peril of being carried away by 
the current ; remaining in wet clothes all day, when the 
temperature was below the freezing point, with perhaps 
the reflection at night that they had advanced a mile 
and a-half after all their exertions ; but cheered at times 
by the views from the river-banks, near which, from one 
hill, thirty-six lakes are said to be visible ; till at length 
the ascent of Hill Eiver was accomplished, and, rigging 
up a new mast, they set sail on Swampy Lake; where 
they reached a depot of the Company. The tenants of 
this depot gave them a supply of mouldy pemmican — 
their own sole subsistence at this season, when the 
lake yields no fish. 

Jack Eiver, which they entered from the lake, was 
full of rapids, though only eight miles long ; and here 
an Indian came back with an answer to a letter written 
by Franklin nine days before, renewing Governor 
Williams' injunctions to the Company's officials to 
assist the expedition. Knee Lake, so called from the 
bend in it, succeeded the Jack Eiver, and Trout Eiver 
Knee Lake. At one of the portages this river formed- 
a cascade sixteen feet in height called Trout Fall, and 
at another, called Knife Portage, the bed of the river ; 
consisted of slaty rocks, which lacerated the boatmen's 



32 Sir John Franklin. 

feet. On the 28th of September they reached Oxford 
House, on Holey Lake, once a Hudson's Bay post of 
some importance. Here they obtained some better 
pemmican and some fish, with which the lake abounds, 
trout of upwards of forty pounds in weight being 
caught in it. 

Up the Weepinapannis River and through Windy 
Lake they went on till they reached a romantic defile, 
named Hill Gates, where perpendicular rocks sixty or 
eighty feet high contract the river so narrowly for 
three-quarters of a mile that there is not room to ply 
oars. The labours of the next portage, thirteen hundred 
yards in length, were lightened by the majestic 
scenery, rushing torrents ending in wild cascades, 
beneath huge masses of shapeless rock, coloured 
by moss and lichen, and crowned by evergreen pines. 
Here, for the first time, a "lop stick" was seen — 
that is to say, a pine-tree shorn of all but its topmost 
tufts, which serves to point out the right route. These 
rude landmarks have a rather curious origin. A man 
treats his friends to some rum, and out of gratitude 
they shave the tree, and call it for the future by his 
name. 

Soon afterwards an accident befell Franklin. He 
slipped from a rock into the river, and was carried 
some distance down the stream, till he grasped a willow, 
and held on until rescued. Though that night the 
thermometer stood at 25°, the only injury he sustained 



Progress of the Expedition. 



was the loss of the minute hand of his chronometer. 
All this time they had been ascending the waters which, 
near York Factory, end at the mouth of the Hayes Eiver. 
At a point called the "Painted Stone" they began the 
descent of the Echemamis, which flows westward at 
first and then joins the Nelson, which flows eastward, 
till it reaches Hudson's Bay. Governor Williams now 
.joined them, having come from York Factory in a 
canoe. By October 6th they had reached the Hudson's 
Bay trading post at Norway Point, which is the point of 
the peninsula separating Play Green Lake from Lake 
Winnipeg. 

The muddiness of these lakes is quaintly accounted 
for by the Indians. One of their deities, a sort of 
Eobin Puck named Weesakootchakt, is treated with 
scant respect by them. An old woman, it is said, suc- 
ceeded in capturing the mischievous imp, and called in 
all the squaws of her tribe to join in punishing him. 
When he got free, they had left him in so filthy a 
condition that he dirtied all the waters of the lakes in 
washing himself clean, and ever since then they have 
been called Winnipeg, or Muddy Water. 

Sailing along the northern shore of Lake Winnipeg, 
the boats reached the mouth of the Saskatchawan, and 
all the 10th of October was spent in getting them 
from the mouth of the river to the foot of the great 
rapid — a distance of two miles. Crossing Cross Lake, 
they entered Cedar Lake, the largest sheet of fresh water 



34 Sir John Franklin. 

they had yet seen, and followed the Saskatchawan till 
they reached first the Little Eiver, and then by it and 
Pine Island Lake, on October 23rd, Cumberland House. 
It was none too soon. Latterly the oars had been so 
loaded with ice as to be scarcely workable, and the ice 
had to be broken before the landing-place could be 
reached. Here, at Governor Williams' invitation, 
Franklin determined to spend the winter; but the 
necessity of obtaining intelligence betimes about the 
country north of the Great Slave Lake, and how guides, 
hunters, and interpreters could be obtained, determined 
him to set out with Back and Hepburn to the Athabasca 
Lake, leaving Eichardson and Hood till the spring at 
Cumberland House. 

It was during his stay at Cumberland House that 
Dr. Eichardson collected some curious statistics about 
the Cree Indians. For instance, they have a tradition 
of a deluge caused by an attempt of the fish to drown 
a demigod with whom they had quarrelled. He built 
a raft, and embarked with his family and all kinds of 
birds and beasts. After the flood had lasted for some 
time, he ordered several water-fowl to dive to the 
bottom. They were drowned ; but a musk rat brought 
back a mouthful of mud, out of which the new earth 
was formed. Of many of their habits and superstitions 
Dr. Eichardson had ocular evidence. In 1819, a 
conjuror came to the fort, who preyed upon the terrors 
of the poor Indians, and, among other boasts, declared 



An Indian Davenport. 35 

that, if tied up ever so fast in his conjuring-house, he 
would, with the help of two or three familiar spirits, 
set himself free. He was promised a greatcoat if he 
succeeded, and Governor Williams, an expert sailor, 
tied the knots. A moose-skin was thrown over a frame 
made of four willow sticks stuck in the ground, with 
the tops tied together, and in it the " God-like " man 
was placed. For an hour and a-half nothing was heard 
but the conjuror's monotonous chant, chorussed by the 
Indians outside. Then the structure shook violently, 
and the believers whispered that " one devil had crept 
under the moose-skin." But it was only the God-like 
man trembling with cold. He had entered the lists 
stript to the skin, and that evening the thermometer 
stood very low. For half-an-hour longer he held out, 
and then owned he was beaten. His countrymen, 
whose careless fastenings he had easily unloosed, 
ceased to put faith in him, and this Cree Davenport 
sneaked away from the fort in disgrace. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FKANKLIN'S FIRST EXPEDITION — CONTINUED. 

Departure from Cumberland House — Snow Shoes — Lack of Provisions 
— Collection of Stores, Boats, Guides, &c. — Fort Providence — Visit 
of Akaitcho — His Proceedings — Preliminary Excursions to the 
Coppermine Piiver — The Cold — News from Home — Misconduct of 
Weeks — Winter Occupations — Back's Visit to Fort Providence. 

FRANKLIN, Back, and Hepburn set out from 
Cumberland House on the 18th of January, 1820. 
They were bound for Carlton House first, and Fort 
Chipewyan finally, and their object was to procure 
guides, hunters, interpreters, provisions, and intelligence, 
for the journey to the sea. They started with two 
caiioles and two sledges, the drivers and dogs of which 
were supplied in equal proportions by the two com- 
pares. Fifteen days' provisions so filled the sledges 
that the dog-drivers grumbled bitterly at the way their 
teams were overloaded. A sledge drawn by three 
dogs weighs about thirty pounds, and carries a load of 
300 pounds at the rate of fifteen miles a-day. Four 
Hudson's Bay sledges kept them company to the second 
stage, and they proceeded on the frozen river in Indian 



Journey from Cumberland House, 37 

file, forming quite a procession. The journey from 
Cumberland House, though made in winter, seems to 
have been far pleasanter than that from York Factory. 
It was indeed bitterly cold, so cold that the mercury of 
the thermometers froze, and it was necessary at times 
to keep rubbing the face to prevent frostbite. The tea 
at night would freeze before it could be drunk, and 
even spirits and water became half congealed. Walking 
in snow shoes was also a serious hardship. Experts in 
such travelling go at a great pace, but the novice, with 
a weight of between two and three pounds attached to 
his galled and aching feet, must either keep pace with 
his comrades or be left behind, for they will not wait. 
The cruelties of the drivers to the dogs were another 
constant source of annoyance to the Englishmen of the 
party. On the other hand, when they could ride, 
wrapped up in the carioles, through splendid scenery, 
which at times resembled that of a well-kept park, with 
high hill-ranges in sight, from which numerous rills fed 
the river running through the wide intervening plain, 
the journey was delightful, and the day's toil served 
only to give zest to the evening's chat round the tent 
fire, when the Canadians were always cheery, however 
brutal to the dogs they might have been by day. 

On the 31st they reached Carlton House, where Mr. 
Prudens, the official in charge, regaled them with 
buffalo steaks, which a long course of pemmican made 
more than ordinarily delicious. Then the clothes 



38 Sir John Franklin. 

which for fourteen days had not been taken off were 
exchanged for others, and the tired travellers proceeded 
to rest for nine days, in order to recover from the pains 
and swellings of their feet. Franklin himself was, from 
this cause, at first kept a prisoner to the house. Carlton 
House is a provision depot, not a fur store, and the 
meat procured from Indians in winter is converted there 
into pemmican for the support of the officials of the 
Company travelling to and from the various posts. 

On ftie 9th of February they left Carlton House, and, 
reaching posts of the two Companies on the 16th, were 
informed by Mr. Cameron, the superintendent of one of 
them, that provisions would probably be scarce in the fol- 
lowing spring about Athabasca, owing to the sickness of 
the Indians in the hunting season. At Franklin's request 
he undertook to forward supplies of pemmican to Isle a 
la Crosse during the winter, which Kichardson and Hood 
were ordered by letter to bring with them when they 
passed. On the 23rd, Franklin found at Isle a la Crosse 
the letters he had forwarded to the Athabasca officials 
from Cumberland House in November, a fact which 
showed him he had been right in coming to look after 
matters in person. Mr. Bethune of the North-West, 
and Mr. Clark of the Hudson's Bay Company, engaged 
to procure pemmican to be brought on by Richardson 
in the spring, and Mr. Clark gave them many useful 
hints for travelling, and escorted them himself to the 
boundary of his department. It receives its name 



Alarming News. 39 



from an island on the lake where the Indians used to 
play the game lately introduced into London, and called 
La Crosse. From none of the superintendents of the 
various departments, nor from the Indians they had 
met, could any intelligence be gained about the country 
beyond Lake Athabasca. 

When they reached Pierre au Calumet, Mr. John 
Stuart, the senior partner of the North-West Company, 
told them that information could be gained from the 
Indians who frequent the north of the lake in spring, 
when they visit the forts, but not before, and recom- 
mended Franklin to send letters to the Great Slave 
Lake posts asking for intelligence, and that guides 
should be engaged in advance. He also communicated 
some alarming news — viz., that it would be very hard 
to prevail on any Canadian voyagers to accompany the 
expedition to the sea, owing to their dread of the 
Esquimaux ; and that, in consequence of the sickness 
which had prevailed among the Indian hunters, the 
residents at Fort Chipewyan had been reduced to live 
entirely on the fish they caught in their nets. This 
famine-note, audible from the very outset, was already 
growing louder, and ominously preluded the day when 
death and disaster were heralded to the expedition by 
its imperious and appalling tones. Franklin, however, 
thought it necessary to proceed at once to Fort Chipe- 
wyan, where he arrived on March 26th, after a journey 
from Cumberland House of 257 miles. At Fort Chipe- 



40 Sir John Franklin, 

wyan, Beaulieu, one of the North- West Company's 
half-breed interpreters, gave some information as to the 
route to the Coppermine Biveiyand an Indian named 
Black Meat drew with charcoal on the floor a rough 
delineation of the coast. Franklin immediately wrote 
to Mr. Smith and Mr. McVicar, the officials of the two 
Companies at the Great Slave Lake, soliciting their 
assistance in other respects, and especially asking them 
to explain the objects of his visit to the Copper Indians, 
and to procure from them hunters and guides. He also 
had a useful conversation with Mr. Dease, himself 
afterwards a notable explorer, who had lately come 
from his station at the Athabasca Lake,. and with an 
old Indian who, when a boy, had accompanied Hearne 
to the sea. The agents of the two Companies were at 
this season bringing to Fort Chipewyan their winter's 
collection of furs, and Franklin, perceiving the rivalry 
and hostility that existed between them, invited 
members of each to meet him in a tent which he 
pitched apart from each establishment, and after 
putting a series of previously prepared questions to 
them, made a requisition on each Company for eight 
men and such stores as it could spare. 

The stores the Companies could give were small, 
for they had been lavishly expending them in their 
opposition tactics, and the men held back,' demanding 
higher wages than could be afforded. But, happily, at 
'this juncture Mr. Smith came from the Great Slave 



Acquisitions for the yourney. 41 

Lake, announcing that Akaitcho, the leading Chief of 
the Copper Indians, was thoroughly favourable to the 
expedition, and that at the instigation of Mr. Wentzel, 
a North- West Company's clerk whom they wished to 
accompany them, he and some of his men were ready 
to join it as hunters and guides, and would await its 
coming at Fort Providence, to the north of the Slave 
Lake. This altered the tone of the Canadian voyagers, 
and that night two of them volunteered their services, 
which were accepted. Franklin's great anxiety now 
was to obtain a good stock of provisions. The furs 
which had been brought to the Fort were being 
despatched daily to the different depots in canoes; 
the assemblage of officials was dispersing, each taking 
with him a supply of food from the Fort ; and so small 
was the stock in hand, that Mr. Smith, now in charge 
of the post, said that whereas there had been 40,000 
pounds of meat after the despatch of the canoes in the 
previous year, this year there would only be 500. 
Franklin therefore wrote urgently to Dr. Eichardson 
to bring all he could possibly collect. Meanwhile, he 
received from Mr. Smith the acceptable present of a 
bark canoe 32 feet 6 inches long, 1 foot 11 J inches 
deep, and in the middle 4 feet 10 inches broad. Such 
a vessel will carry a load of 3,30 Q pounds in weight. 
It weighs about 300 pounds itself, but the bowman and 
steersman, on whose skill its safety in rapids depends, 
often run with it at a portage. 



42 Sir John Franklin, 

On July 13th, Dr. Bichardson and Hood rejoined 
the party. All that men could do they had done ; but 
after Franklin's wise forethought and incessant efforts 
to collect provisions, the tidings they brought must 
have been a bitter disappointment. Ten bags of pem- 
mican, which they had procured at Isle a la Crosse 
from the North-West Company, turned out to be 
mouldy, and had to be left behind. The Hudson's Bay 
post furnished none, for its voyagers, being provisionless 
themselves, had eaten the stores destined for Franklin. 
In short, Kichardson arrived with only one day's 
supply of this essential article. The start, however, 
could not be delayed, for Fort Chipewyan could no 
longer provision its visitors. All that could be done 
was to obtain such stores as could be spared, 
including some small stock of clothing for the men 
engaged there and for presents to the Indians : and 
though unable to procure additional ammunition or 
spirits, and but little tobacco, Franklin made his final 
arrangements for setting out. 

Mr. Hood had brought with him from Cumberland 
House ten Canadians, and as the men who had come 
from Stromness showed no zeal for the service, they 
were dismissed, and Franklin left Fort Chipewyan with 
sixteen Canadians, one Indian woman, Hepburn, and 
the three officers. Mr. Smith had only been able to give 
him seventy pounds of moose meat and a little barley. 
Besides this, he had pemmican for one day's consump- 



Moose Deer Island reached. 43 

tion and two barrels of flour, three cases of preserved 
meat, some chocolate, arrowroot, and portable soup, 
which he had brought from England, and intended to 
reserve for the journey to the coast in tbe following 
season. The Canadians, however, after a dram, set 
out in high spirits to a lively paddling song, evincing 
then, as always afterwards, an improvident inatten- 
tion to anything but the circumstances of the 
hour. 

And now began once more the old experiences of 
rivers, lakes, and portages, the details of which are too 
familiar to be described again. 

The Slave Eiver, connecting Lake Athabasca, which 
the party was leaving, with the Great Slave Lake, for 
which they were making, is a magnificent sheet of 
water three-quarters of a mile wide. Down this they 
went with great rapidity, till they reached Moose 
Deer Island, on the Great Slave Lake, having suffered 
no other mishap than the breaking of a canoe, but 
tormented for a time by mosquitoes. Swarms of 
these appeared after a thunderstorm which caused 
the river to overflow its banks and flood their night 
encampment. At the island — which is 260 miles by 
the river-course from Fort Chipewyan — letters were 
found from Mr. Wentzel, stating that, on the north 
side of the Great Slave Lake, an Indian guide was 
waiting at Fort Providence. Franklin also engaged 
Pierre St. Germain as an interpreter for the Copper 



44 Sir John Franklin. 

Indians, and obtained from the two Companies a gun, 
a pair of pistols, and 550 pounds of meat. 

Eesuming the voyage, the party crossed the lake, 
and reached Fort Providence on the 28th of July. At 
this post of the North- Western Company they found 
Mr. Wentzel, the interpreter, Jean Baptiste Adam, 
and some Indian guides, and fire-signals brought a 
messenger from Akaitcho announcing that he would 
visit Franklin next morning. Mr. Wentzel imparted 
all the information he had gathered from the Indians, 
and, as he spoke their language, promised to be very 
useful. His duties were to be the management of the 
Indians, the superintendence of the Canadians, and the 
distribution of the stores. 

Akaitcho's visit was prepared for with much cere- 
mony. Each officer dressed himself in uniform, and 
wore a medal, and a silken Union Jack was hoisted 
over one of the tents. About noon a procession of 
canoes appeared, Akaitcho in the foremost paddled by 
two men. With grave face and dignified step he walked 
past the spectators on the beach, looking neither to the 
right nor the left till he reached the tent. There, 
having smoked a pipe and drunk a glass of spirits and 
water, he made an harangue, saying how glad he was 
to see such great chiefs, but that he was disappointed 
at finding they had not, as he had been led to expect, 
brought with them a medicine man who could raise 
the dead, for he felt as if the friends- he had hoped to 



Conference with the Indians. 45 

see had been torn from him again ; and that he wished 
to know the precise objects of the expedition. Franklin 
made a polite reply, to the effect that he was searching 
for a passage which would enable the great Chief he 
served to send abundance of stores by sea for the 
Indians, that this Chief wished the Esquimaux and 
Indians to be at peace, and that, though his stores were 
at present small, he would reward the Indians' service 
with a present now, with another on his return, and 
with a discharge of their debts to the North-West 
Company. 

It appeared that none of the Indians knew the coast 
for more than three days' march east of the Copper- 
mine Eiver's mouth, and they recommended a different 
route from that which Franklin had proposed, on the 
ground that reindeer would be more plentiful there. 
Twenty-five lakes, half of them connected by a river 
flowing into the Slave Lake, would, they said, lead to 
the Coppermine Kiver, and they pointed out a lake 
south of that river, which, having plenty of wood and 
fish, would be a good place for the winter's encamp- 
ment. This lake, they thought, might be reached in 
about twenty days. Though shorter in distance, the 
route thus proposed was a more difficult one than that 
down the Mackenzie Eiver and across Great Bear Lake, 
which Franklin had first intended to take ; but besides 
the reasons given by the Indians, he did not like to 
move too far from the Great Slave Lake depots, whence 



46 Sir John Franklin, 

he hoped to get ammunition in the winter. So he 
accepted Akaitcho's suggestion, placed a medal round 
his neck, and the next day welcomed him to a dance, 
where the movements of the dancers threw him into 
fits of laughter. 

On the 1st of August the Indians went ahead, 
intending to wait for the expedition at the mouth of 
the Yellow Knife Eiver. Franklin's party remained 
behind to pack up the stores unseen by them, as they 
would have begged for everything they saw. Two 
barrels of gunpowder, a hundred and forty pounds of 
ball and small shot, and food for ten days' consumption 
were the main stores contained by their three canoes, 
and the whole company were thirty-one, including 
three women and two children. Besides Franklin, 
Eichardson, Back, Hood, Wentzel, and Hepburn, there 
were eighteen Canadian voyagers — Peltier, Credit, 
Solomon Belanger. Jean Baptiste Belanger, Bennoit, 
Gagne, Dumas, Forcier, Perrault, Samandre, Beaupar- 
lant, Fontano, Yaillant, Parent, Belleau, Coumoy^e, 
and Michel, an Iroquois, with two Chipewyan hois 
brules, or metifs — that is to say, the children of the 
companies' agents and Indian or half-breed wives. 
These men acted as interpreters, and their names were 
Adam and St. Germain. 

In high spirits at entering at last on the grand object 
of the whole expedition, and on a region unvisited 
hitherto by any European, they set out northwards 



A Mutiny quelled. 47 

along the eastern side of a deep bay of the lake. It 
was the 2nd of August, and next day they met 
Akaitcho at the Yellow Knife Eiver, up which they 
paddled, Akaitcho soon sinking the dignity which at 
first he thought it proper to maintain, and sharing the 
work with the rest. Four days later the provisions 
were well nigh exhausted, with the exception of the 
portable soup and preserved meats, and frequent 
portages exhausted the men. The Canadians broke 
out into open murmurs, and threatened to return unless 
given more food. But Franklin's firmness in threaten- 
ing instant punishment for insubordination overawed 
them, and when two reindeer were brought in by the 
hunters, they forgot all their cares. Plenty of meat 
was afterwards procured for daily consumption, and 
without further adventures they reached the site for 
the winter encampment, which proved to be not only 
convenient, but picturesque. The portages crossed were 
twenty-one miles in length altogether. Each had to 
be crossed seven times, four times with a load of 180 
pounds, so that the men had to walk 150 miles instead 
of twenty-one. The total distance from Chipewyan 
was 553 miles. 

Next morning, August 21st, they set about collecting 
meat and materials for a house, while an Indian was 
sent to summon Akaitcho. He, when he came, brought 
only fifteen reindeer, and, what was far more galling to 
Franklin, refused to accompany him in the descent of 



48 Sir yohn Franklin. 

the Coppermine Eiver, prophesying for the party death 
from cold or starvation if his advice was disregarded. 
At last, after much parley, he said, " Well, I have said 
all I can urge to dissuade you from going on this 
service, on which it seems you wish to sacrifice your 
own lives as well as the Indians who might attend 
you ; however, if, after all I have said, you are deter- 
mined to go, some of my young men shall join the 
party, because it shall not be said that we permitted 
you to die alone after having brought you hither; but 
from the moment they embark in the canoes, I and my 
relatives shall lament them as dead." In consequence 
of this conversation, and hearing that the chief was 
meditating a return to Fort Providence, Franklin 
reluctantly gave up the idea of descending the Copper- 
mine Eiver for that season. But he determined to 
send Back and Hood to reconnoitre it in a light canoe, 
and they set out on the 29th. 

On September 4th the building of the house was 
begun, and as the hunting parties were organised, and 
all in train for the winter's sojourn, Franklin, Eichard- 
son, and Hepburn, with Samandre and one Indian, 
Keskarrah, as guide, started on foot to visit the river. 
At night they gathered some pine brush, and, though 
the thermometer stood at 29°, slept soundly, with only 
one blanket to cover them. They did not, however, 
undress. Old Keskarrah, on the contrary, stripped 
himself to the skin, and after toasting himself over the 



Fort Enterprise, 49 

fire, crept into his heap of deerskins, and instantly fell 
asleep. This is the custom of all the Indian tribes, 
even when tying in the open air. On the 12th they 
reached the Coppermine Eiver, and were glad to see 
that plenty of spruce trees grew near its course. On 
the 15th they regained Fort Enterprise — for that was 
the name given to the house that was being built — and 
found that Back and Hood had arrived there before 
them. Their men had behaved extremely well under 
severe hardships, being generally obliged to lie down 
in their wet clothes, with only just fuel enough to boil 
a kettle. Including these journeys, the total distance 
travelled by the expedition in 1820 was 1,520 miles 
up to the time of its taking up its quarters at Fort 
Enterprise. 

On first taking up their residence in the house, they 
had to eat, sit, and sleep upon the floor. But every 
day some table or chair or bedstead was added to their 
comforts. The men were set to work to build another 
house, 34 feet long and 18 wide, for themselves, and 
the carcases of 100 deer, with 1,000 pounds of suet 
and some dried meat, were placed in the storehouse. 
Eighty deer were lying en cache at various distances 
away. 

On the 18th of October, Back and Wentzel set out 
for Fort Providence to arrange for transporting the 
expected stores from Fort Cumberland, and to obtain 
additional supplies. If the stores had not come, Back 



50 Sir John Franklin. 

was, if he could, to go on to Fort Chipewyan, for the 
want of ammunition and tobacco was becoming a 
pressing necessity, without which it would be impos- 
sible to ensure the Indians' friendship or the Canadians' 
cheerfulness. Akaitcho and his party came in on the 
26th, the reindeer season being over. They made a 
merit of asking for ammunition, knowing there was 
none to give them, though they might have been 
netting fish or snaring birds, as they ordinarily do. 
Their arrival was a serious drain on the stock of pro- 
visions. By-and-by, too, the fish failed, and fishing 
was given up on November 5th. Altogether, 1,250 
white fish of two or three pounds each had been caught 
up till then. Latterly the fish froze as they were 
taken out of the nets. In a short time they became a 
solid mass of ice, and were easily split by a blow of a 
hatchet, when the intestines could be removed in one 
lump. If in this frozen state they were thawed before 
a fire, they recovered their animation. 

The return of Back was eagerly expected, and the 
Indians were full of forebodings at his non-appearance. 
At last, on November 23rd, Belanger, one of his party, 
appeared, covered with ice from head to foot, and 
scarcely recognisable, having walked for thirty-six 
hours at a stretch. In a moment his packet was 
opened, and letters and newspapers from England, the 
latest dating from April, were being eagerly devoured. 
George III/s death and George IV/s accession were kept 



Bad Conduct of Mr, Weeks, 51 

secret from the Indians, lest they should think Franklin 
would now be unable to fulfil the promises which he 
had made in the former's name. 

Belanger brought bad news about the stores. After 
a squabble with a North-West Company's man as to 
the share he should take in carrying these stores, the 
Hudson's Bay official in charge of them had actually 
left the tobacco and ammunition on the beach at the 
Grand Sapid on the Saskatchawan River. Nor was 
this, to tli em most dire loss, all ; Belanger's companions, 
the Indians, reported to Akaitcho that Mr. Weeks, the 
official in charge at Fort Providence, had been spreading 
it about that Franklin and his party were not officers 
of a great king, but poor wretches trying to subsist 
on the plenty of the Copper Indians. Akaitcho 
sensibly came straight to Franklin, and seemed 
satisfied with his explanation ; but Back also by letter 
reported the allegation of Weeks — that he had been 
desired not to assist the expedition — and the unfriend- 
liness of the .tribes ; and in the end, this shameful 
misconduct of an obscure Jack-in-office was destined 
to affect fatally the fortunes of the expedition. 

The Indians were, however, much cheered at hearing 
that two Esquimaux interpreters were at the Slave 
Lake on their way to join the party; and Franklin, 
giving them one hundred bails, which Belanger had 
brought from Fort Providence, at last, on the 10th 
of December, induced them to betake themselves to 



52 Sir John Franklin. 

other quarters, and so relieve his storehouse of the 
alarming drain on its contents. Previously, he had sent 
St. Germain, bearing strongly-worded requests to the 
officials at Moose Deer Island and Chipewyan, to furnish 
Back with stores. St. Germain also carried a bundle of 
broken axes to be repaired. For though the Indians 
called it a warm winter, the cold had now grown 
intense. The trees froze to their centres, and became 
as hard as stones, so that the axes were daily broken 
in cutting them. A thermometer in the bedroom, 
sixteen feet from the fire, stood occasionally at 15° 
below zero, even when exposed to the fire's direct 
radiation, and before it was lighted fell more than once 
to 40° below zero. Once it sank to 59° below zero. 
Luckily, however, the weather was calm; and it has 
been the experience of all Arctic travellers, that intense 
cold is perfectly endurable so long as there is no wind. 
The woodcutters did not use any defence for their faces 
even while at their work. 

The little party found plenty to do in the cold, dark 
winter, when even the resplendent beauty of the moon, 
which for many days hardly disappeared below the 
horizon, and the brilliant aurora, which lit up the 
heavens for twenty-eight days in December, could not 
make up for want of sunlight, a modicum of which they 
enjoyed only from half-past eleven a.m. to half-past 
two p.m. Hood drew a portrait of Keskarrah's 
daughter, Green Stockings, the belle of her tribe, 



Winter Occupations. 53 

against the wishes of her mother, who feared King 
George might be so fascinated as to send for the 
original of the picture ; but the young lady herself was 
anything but displeased. Indeed, though under sixteen 
years old, she had already been married twice, and no 
doubt regarded the prospect which her mother feared 
with more than composure. 

With such and other occupations — map-making, 
soap-making, candle-making, botanising, observations 
of the- aurora, writing of journals, readings, and games — 
the year 1820 came to an end. Eeindeer-meat and tea 
formed the daily subsistence of the party, varied by 
fish twice a- week and chocolate on Sundays; but they 
had no vegetables, and but little flour. Every voyager 
in these countries, when en route, strains every nerve to 
reach a post before New Year's Day, that he may share 
its merriment and good cheer. Eagerly, therefore, did 
Franklin watch for the return of his messengers on 
the 1st of January, 1821. But they did not arrive till 
the 15 th. They brought some rum, ammunition, and 
tobacco, but the Indians had broached one cask, and 
spent two days in drinking, and Franklin, though dis- 
tressed at this proof of their untrustworthiness, felt 
constrained to accept their artful apology that they only 
meant to take the New Year's present which he could 
not give them. The rum, which was proof, was frozen, 
and, even after being before the fire for some time, was 
as thick as honey. The fingers, when applied to a 



54 Sir John Franklin. 

glass of it, adhered, and would soon have frozen, but 
each voyager tossed off his dram without any com- 
plaint of toothache. 

On the 27th, Wentzel and St. Germain returned, with 
four dogs and the two Esquimaux, who had been 
called by the English Augustus and Junius. Back, 
they said, had discharged one of the men, Belleau, and 
proceeded to Chipewyan. 

On the 5th of February, Akaitcho sent for more 
ammunition, complaining that he was degraded in the 
eyes of his tribe by being supplied so scantily, and 
alluding to fresh unpleasant reports circulated at 
Fort Providence, and to Weeks having refused to cash 
some small notes given to the Indian hunters by 
Franklin. Some powder and shot, some diluted 
spirits, and some unmixed expressions of regard were 
sent 4 to the irate chief, who, however, being a remark- 
ably shrewd man, calculated, perhaps, that a petitioner 
poses sometimes most efficaciously in the attitude of an 
aggrieved person, and may have used the mean lies of 
the miserable concocter rather than believed them. 

He was, indeed, always practical and prudent, even 
in speculative matters. He would not, for instance, 
say what his own notions of a future state were, but 
was quite willing to attend the Christian worship, 
and to learn what it meant; whereas conceited old 
Keskarrah openly avowed his scepticism, beginning 
one of his speeches with the words, " It is very strange 



Back's Return. 55 



that I never meet with anyone who is equal in sense to 
myself." That Weeks had spread reports was sub- 
sequently proved, and the only defence he seems to 
have made was, that Franklin's party lowered his 
Company in the eyes of the traders, so that he was only 
acting in the Company's interests as a retort. But now 
he sent by Franklin's messenger, who came back from 
the great Slave Lake on the 5th of March, a denial of 
having spread any reports. When such a miscreant 
was at work, Akaitcho might plausibly pretend to be 
suspicious. 

On the 12th of March four more men were sent on a 
mission to Fort Providence, and on the 17th Back 
returned, after a marvellous journey, which could only 
have been performed by a man of dauntless courage 
and iron strength. Back, it will be remembered, set 
out on the 18th of October for Fort Providence, with 
Wentzel, some Indians, and two Indian women, who 
behaved very well on the journey. Provisions ran 
short, and, thinking him badly off, one of them gave 
him a pike she caught, and refused to share it, saying, 
"We are accustomed to starvation, but you are not." 
One of the Indian men behaved in the same way, but 
was at last induced to share the present he had made. 
The walking was very toilsome, over snow, through 
which they constantly fell, among broken wood and 
loose stones, and once up a towering rock. Hunger 
made such toils the more insupportable, and they were 



5tf Sir John Franklin, 

reduced to feed on tripe de roche — a lichen scraped from 
the rocks, which we now hear of for the first time in 
the annals of the expedition, but which subse- 
quently becomes so dismally frequent. An unexpected 
"luxury," which they much relished, was given 
them by one of the women, who scraped from an 
old skin some relics of fat, mixed with deer's hairs and 
Indian's hairs, and presented it with some pounded 
meat. 

On reaching Fort Providence, a ludicrous scene 
occurred. Back wished to send back the Indians at 
once with letters to Franklin. But they alleged illness 
and want of rest. Some spirits were given them, and 
in a quarter of an hour they were, they said, ready to 
go anywhere. With the last drops, however, their 
courage oozed out, and they began to cry, only to dry 
their tears, and to become as jovial as before, on the 
production of a second bottle. At Fort Providence 
Back received nothing but disappointing news of the 
stores. So he set out in a dog-sledge, and on 
December 10th reached Moose Deer Island. Here 
he found some spirits adulterated by the men who had 
brought them, thirty-five instead of sixty pounds of 
sugar, and neither ammunition nor tobacco. He 
vigorously demanded supplies from both Companies, 
but, as they were themselves badly off, and he could 
not get half what he wanted, he sent off what he had 
obtained to Fort Enterprise, and himself set out again 



Back's Sufferings. 57 

for the Athabasca Lake, with Beauparlant, a half- 
breed, and two dog-sledges laden with pemmican. 

The snow was so deep that on some days the dogs 
were forced to stop every ten minutes, and the cold so 
great that the faces of both his followers were badly 
frozen. He himself got a bad fall, owing to his snow- 
shoes becoming entangled in the sledges, and was 
dragged some way by them, and his knees became very 
painful, so th£t, though the dogs went slowly, he could 
hardly keep pace with them. The poor animals 
suffered still more. Snow fell, and balled in lumps 
between their toes. They became quite exhausted, 
and their feet perfectly raw. Back made shoes for 
them, but they continually came off in the deep 
snow. From extremity of cold they passed, when they 
reached the upper part of the Slave Kiver, to what was 
to them extremity of heat. "It is terrible," said 
Beauparlant, " to be frozen and sunburnt in the same 
da}'." It was not the physical pain which he minded 
most. Veteran voyagers consider a frostbite to be a 
sign of effeminacy, and excusable only in " pork- 
eaters," as they call novices in the country. 

Presently a north-west gale rose, and the cold became 
piercingly intense. It was necessary to keep rubbing 
the face with one hand, while the other was made 
warm to take its turn at the same operation ; and 
scarcely had the remedy relieved one frostbite, when 
another required it again. Almost the whole side of 



58 Sir John Franklin. 

one man's face was raw. Back and Beauparlant were 
both lame, and in great pain. Yet in spite of all 
their sufferings they reached Chipewyan after a journey 
of ten days and four hours — the shortest time in which 
the distance had ever been done at that season of the 
year. It was a grand walk; and the Company's 
officials were the more surprised, because a report had 
come that the party had been speared to death by the 
Esquimaux. Back's demands were only partially 
satisfied, and he was kept waiting for goods, which 
did not come till February 9th. However, he at last set 
out with four sledge-loads of stores, after giving one 
more proof of his endurance by kissing the whole 
female population of the Fort, when it drew up in line 
to see him off. Taking up the stock at Fort Providence, 
and leaving directions for fresh supplies to be sent the 
following year, he made straight for Fort Enterprise, 
after an absence of nearly five months, during which he 
had travelled one thousand one hundred and four miles 
on snow-shoes, with no other covering at night in the 
woods but a blanket and a deerskin, with the thermo- 
meter frequently at 40°, and once at 67° below zero, 
and sometimes passing two or three days without 
tasting food. 



CHAPTER V 

FRANKLINS FIRST EXPEDITION (CONTINUED). 

Misconduct of St. Germain — Difficulties with Akaitcho — The Start 
from Fort Enterprise — "Bloody Fall" — Esquimaux — The Indians 
desert — "Wentzel sent back — Boat Voyage along the Coast — Point 
Turn again. 

FRANKLIN now began to prepare for his grand 
attempt. The month of March was fine, and the 
two Belangers, who were sent with despatches for the 
Colonial Secretary in April, came back by the end of 
the month with the rest of the goods which Back's 
indomitable efforts had procured from the Athabascan 
department. Cournoyee, being ill, was discharged. 
One Indian and an Indian woman were also sent back, 
and the two others preferred to join Akaitcho. A 
letter had been sent to Governor Williams, begging 
him to send a schooner to Wager Bay, with provisions 
and clothing for the party, should it reach that part of 
the coast. 

It was, in fact, high time to be gone. Signs of 
summer were thickening. . The whole establishment 
was thrown into commotion, and filled with cheerful- 



60 Sir John Franklin. 

ness, by the apparition of a large house-fly on the 8th 
of May. This great event was a topic of conversation 
for the rest of the day. On the 14th a robin appeared, 
which the natives consider the infallible precursor of 
warm weather. The birds are, in fact, to them a sort 
of natural almanack. Geese reach Cumberland House 
about April 12th, Fort Chipewyan about the 25th, Fort 
Providence about the the 1st of May, and Fort Enter- 
prise about the 14th. But if summer was coming, food 
was going. The nets produced but few fish. The 
hunters sent no meat. The pounded meat kept for 
summer use was almost gone. Occasionally only one 
meal a-day w r as to be had. The Indians about the 
house suffered most. Franklin in vain tried to get 
them to join Akaitcho, but they were sick or infirm, 
and liked Dr. Richardson's medicines. With pity he 
saw them scraping the snow away at the autumn 
encampment to look for bits of hide, bones, and deers' 
feet, in order to gnaw or suck them after they had 
been boiled. Little then did he think that the day 
would soon come when he himself should envy them 
their miserable meal. In order to keep the men from 
brooding over their privations, Franklin encouraged 
sledging down the banks of the river, and while 
cheerily joining in the fun, was thrown from his 
sledge, and driven over by a fat Indian woman, who 
sprained his knee in her career. 

He had other causes for anxiety besides want of 



St. Germai7is Misconduct. 61 

food. St. Germain, he found, had been tampering with 
the Indians since his visit to Fort Providence, having 
no doubt been corrupted by the bad example of the evil 
genius of the expedition — Weeks. The interpreter had 
worked on the fears both of the Canadians and Indians, 
representing the intended journey as certain to be fatal, 
and suggesting to Akaitcho that affronts were being 
deliberately offered him. Franklin threatened to carry 
him for trial to England, but St. Germain doggedly 
replied that it mattered little whether he died in 
England or at the sea, where, if he persisted in going 
on, they would all perish. Unable to dispense with 
the traitor's services, Franklin could only remonstrate. 
Akaitcho, too, who in March seemed friendly, and had 
promised to go to the mouth of the Coppermine Eiver, 
and for some distance along the coast, now assumed 
another attitude. He sent to request that he might be 
received with a salute and presents, as when he visited 
Fort Providence. When this was complied with, though 
Franklin grudged the waste of the precious powder, 
he proceeded to detail a number of grievances, some of 
which, though irritating to Franklin, were, we can see, 
reasonable enough, and others which showed the evil 
effects of St. Germain's baseness and his own inability 
to resist driving a hard bargain with distressed men. 
He first asked that the great chief King George should 
send him a fine present by sea, if the passage to it was 
found. Then he asked how he could expect to be paid 



62 Sir John Franklin. 

the large reward promised by Franklin if Weeks would 
not now cash Franklin's trifling notes. Both Com- 
panies seemed, he said, enemies to the expedition. 
Then Franklin's rum was too weak, and his presents 
too small, and he really could not accept them. With 
long-suffering prudence, Franklin replied that King 
George would certainly send him a present; that the 
rumours spread about were lies, such as, he took it for 
granted, were the rumours he heard about Akaitcho; 
that his debts to the Company had been cancelled ; 
that Weeks was too far away to be brought to book ; 
and that the rum was really of better quality, though 
milder, and was what English noblemen drank. 
Akaitcho, however, remained sullen, and declared that 
the expedition, if persisted in, was doomed to destruc- 
tion. This was clearly an inspiration from St. Germain, 
who, knowing it would be attributed to him, took 
alarm, and to some extent altered Akaitcho's de- 
meanour. In strong contrast with such sulky avarice 
was the gratitude of Augustus and Junius on being 
given some lace dresses. It is impossible to describe 
the joy of the latter on the receipt of this present. 
The happy little fellow burst into laughter as he 
surveyed the different articles of his gay habiliments. 

Luckily for Franklin, jealousies among the Indians 
stood him in good stead. He had previously received 
offers to collect provisions for him on his route from 
the second chief in importance, named The Hook. 



Akaitcho's Whims. G3 

And now, when the rest of the Indians came in with 
Akaitcho's brothers, Humpy and Anoethaiyazzeh, and 
Longlegs, brother of The Hook, it soon appeared that 
Akaitcho was not to have it all his own way. Akaitcho 
still refused to say whether he would go to the sea, and 
still refused to accept the presents, saying he must 
have more. Humpy then said that he could testify 
that Franklin had, at the outset, stated his inability to 
give larger rewards till the journey was over. This 
somewhat staggered Akaitcho, but he would not give 
way, and the provoking pettiness of the whole affair 
may be gauged by the fact that, after much haggling, 
he demanded two or three more kettles and some 
blankets. The officers gave him one a-piece from their 
own beds ; but sorely tried indeed must their patience 
and good temper have been, as they reflected how the 
vital necessity- of this man's co-operation forced them 
to chaffer with a savage in whose eyes some tinker's 
ware was more valuable than the welfare and projects 
of civilised men. 

At last, Akaitcho's avarice betrayed him into an 
indiscretion. "There are too few goods," he sulkily 
said, " for me to distribute ; those that mean to follow 
the white people to the sea may take them." To his 
chagrin, the guide and most of the hunters declared 
that they would go, and the hunters, on being 
given ammunition, set off to procure supplies for the 
march. Akaitcho saw now that he had ?one too far, 



64 Sir John Franklin. 

and made a sort of apologia -pro vita sua, representing 
himself as Chief Beggar for the whole tribe, and there- 
fore importunate on principle — an excuse which proved 
him qualified to shine in callings and countries less 
rude than his own. One more artful attempt, however, 
he made to discover if, after all, he had thoroughly 
explored the nakedness of the land. Two old men, he 
said, were come with some meat, if Franklin wished to 
have it. Franklin said he would pay for it with notes 
on the North-West Company ; and at length the astute 
Akaitcho was convinced that he had sucked the orange 
dry, and that, whatever price he was to get for his 
services, its payment must be waited for till some 
future day. Through all these negotiations Franklin's 
good sense and good humour appear in a striking light. 
Even when most worried by their mixture of childish- 
ness and diplomacy, he had an eye for the better 
qualities of which, it will be seen in the sequel, 
Akaitcho was possessed, and his dignified resistance to 
imposture, and never-varying kindness, inspired a 
respect and attachment which eventually was the 
salvation of his own and his companions' lives. 

On the 4th of June, 1821, Dr. Eichardson started in 
charge of the first party, which numbered twenty-three 
adults and some children, with three dog-sledges and a 
number of hand-sledges. Franklin's plan was to make 
for the sea down the Coppermine Eiver, and there to 
take only enough of the party to man two canoes, 



Franklins Departure. 65 

sending back the rest with Mr. Wentzel, who was to 
collect meat and deposit it at fixed places for the crews 
of the canoes, should they be forced to return overland. 
Akaitcho was specially ordered to victual Fort Enter- 
prise before the following September, and promised to 
do so, suggesting the cellar as the best place in which 
to store the meat. In the afternoon he set out on his 
hunting duties, after slyly remarking to Franklin that, 
now the house was stripped, he saw the English had 
really no more presents to make him, and that he 
would do his best to supply them with food. On the 
13th, messengers came from Eichardson saying he had 
reached Point Lake, and on the 14th, Franklin, having 
sent the canoes ahead, each dragged by four men and 
two dogs, himself with the rest of the party left Fort 
Enterprise. 

The course lay northwards, along a chain of lakes 
connected by rivers. Franklin fell through the ice in 
one place, and the matter-of-fact way in which he 
chronicles his own misfortune contrasts with his pity- 
ing mention of a similar mishap to the Esquimaux 
Junius. But to be wet through all day, to march when 
suffering from rheumatic pains, to be half eaten by 
mosquitoes by night, were the normal conditions of such 
travelling, and after several days of it, Franklin was 
glad to reach Point Lake and Dr. BichardsonV 
encampment. Here he found that Akaitcho had spent 
all his ammunition, without having accumulated any 



Qb Sir John Franklin. 

meat, and all that he had to depend on was two 
hundred pounds of dried meat prepared by Eichardson. 
He told Akaitcho he would in future give him ammu- 
nition only in proportion to the meat brought in. 

Proceeding down the main channel of the lake, he 
found his men so jaded by excessive toil, as well as 
crippled by inflammation, that he determined to leave 
one of his three canoes behind so as to provide an 
additional dog for each of the other two canoes, and 
three men to help in carrying the loads. But the 
travelling grew worse as they went on. Eecent rain 
had honeycombed the ice, and its innumerable sharp 
points tore the shoes and the feet of those walking on 
it at every step. The steps of the dogs, too, were 
marked by a trail of blood. 

At length this irksome work of hauling boats over 
land and lake and river, of cutting paths through ice 
drifts, of wading through water two feet deep over 
rotten ice, was over, and at nine a.m., July 2nd, they 
had the happiness to embark on the Coppermine 
River — at this point about two hundred yards wide — 
and were borne along with tremendous rapidity over 
large stones, which would have dashed the canoes to 
pieces had the bottoms struck on them. But there was 
nothing for it but to trust to the bowman and steers- 
man's skill, and admire the beautiful scenery-on the 
banks, where wooded dells and dales were bounded by 
a range of hills six hundred feet high. The trees had 



1 he Hook's Generosity. 67 

begun to put forth leaves, and flowers decked the moss- 
covered ground. When they reached any dangerous 
rapid, they disembarked the ammunition and instru- 
ments till the canoes had got clear. 

On the 7th of July they came to The Hook's 
encampment. Akaitcho had just told Franklin that 
he was a rogue, but he turned out to be a far more 
generous- man than Akaitcho. He made Franklin a 
present of all the meat he had, saying -that he was too 
much indebted to the white men to see them in want 
of food, that he knew they could not afford to delay, 
and that his people could live on fish till they could 
procure more meat. He also agreed to remain east of 
the Bear Lake till November, at the spot nearest the. 
Coppermine Eiver, with which it communicates by 
lakes and portages, and to deposit provisions both thete 
and at convenient distances along the line of communi- 
cation, and along the river to the Copper Mountains. 

Soon after parting from The Hook, they came to a 
bend in the river, which then ran due north, through 
the hills which had before been parallel to its eastern 
bank. It is less broad here, and the Indians had 
told them that they would reach a "terrific rapid," 
impassable by canoes. This rapid is formed by 
perpendicular cliffs from 80 to 150 feet high, round 
the spurs of which the water dashes furiously. It 
was safely passed, and a flying visit made to the 
Copper Mountains, on the west of the river, which are 



68 Sir John Franklin. 

from 1200 to 1500 feet high. They were now near the 
spot where Esquimaux had been always seen, and 
Augustus and Junius were sent ahead to reconnoitre, 
and as they did not return as soon as expected, the 
Indians were persuaded to stay behind, in spite of the 
opposition of Akaitcho, now as always full of objections 
when acquiescence was necessary. " United/' he said, 
" the party might do something ; separated, they would 
fall a prey to the Esquimaux." Franklin persuaded 
him that the first thing was to avoid alarming the 
Esquimaux, and he stayed behind, only to reappear, to 
Franklin's disgust, just at the time when Esquimaux 
had actually been encountered by the two interpreters. 
The Esquimaux were not unfriendly, but, on catching 
sight of a number of the party, had fled from the place 
where they were conversing with Augustus, and dis- 
appeared on the eastern shore. The neighbourhood 
was an ominous one. At the Esquimaux encampment 
were skulls bearing the marks of violence, and appar- 
ently it was the place which Hearne had christened 
" Bloody Fall," to commemorate the massacre of 
Esquimaux perpetrated there by his Indian followers. 
Another party of Esquimaux was shortly afterwards 
seen, and when they took to flight, one old man of 
their number was unable to escape, and Augustus 
made friends with him. He agreed to barter some 
meat — which, however, proved too putrid for use — and 
informed him that his people came to the Bloody Fall 



The Indians desert. 69 

in summer to fish for salmon, and retired to the coast 
in winter, where they lived in snow huts. Other bands 
of Esquimaux being seen, the Indians became terribly 
alarmed, and, in spite of all Franklin could say, they 
determined to leave him at once. They promised, 
however, to halt at the Copper Mountains for Wentzel 
and the four men who were to return as soon as the 
sea was reached, and pledged themselves to deposit 
provisions both at Fort Enterprise and on the banks 
of the Coppermine River. Not one of their promises 
was kept. The interpreters. Adam and St Germain, 
were infected by the same panic as the Indians; but 
Franklin, having their written engagement to go with 
him throughout the voyage, and being unable to dis- 
pense with their skill in hunting, would not allow 
them to withdraw, and kept them under surveillance. 

On the 19th July, he gave his letters into Wentzel's 
charge, and in the evening sent him, with four 
Canadians — Parent, Cannier, Dumas, and Forcier — on 
the homeward route, his own party numbering twenty. 
Wentzel's instructions were as follows, and it is 
important to note them, because, dreadful though the 
subsequent sufferings of the expedition were, it is clear 
that both at this stage of it, as at every other, Franklin 
had neglected no precaution which anxious foresight 
could suggest to render such sufferings impossible. 
He was to go to Point Lake, take the canoe left there 
to Fort Enterprise, embark in it the books and instru- 



70 Sir John Franklin. 

ments remaining in the house, carry them to the Slave 
Lake, and despatch them to England. But he was not 
to quit Fort Enterprise till he had satisfied himself 
that the Indians would stock it with provisions; he 
was to get ammunition for them, if they wanted any, 
from Fort Providence ; he was to leave a letter at the 
Fort, stating where the Indian hunting parties would 
be in September and October; and he was to take to 
the North-West Company a list of the goods promised 
to Akaitcho, and a request that the drafts on it might 
be duly honoured. Further, if he met The Hook, he 
was to assure him that he was carrying documents 
which would ensure payment for any meat placed en 
cache, and to say that Franklin fully relied on his 
keeping his word. Lastly, if he could kill any animals 
himself, he was to put them en cache under conspicuous 
marks. Thus, having taken every precaution which 
prudence could suggest, and after a journey from Fort 
Enterprise of 334 miles, during 117 of which the 
canoes were dragged over snow and ice, Franklin and 
his little party prepared to essay the waters of the 
unknown sea. 

A gale at first prevented the canoes from being 
launched on an element which the Englishmen hailed 
as an old friend. What was worse, an inroad had to 
be made on the dried meat, of which they only had 
brought enough for fifteen days' consumption. But on 
the 21st they paddled aw T ay at noon, and for ^the rest 



Food fails. 71 



of the day eastwards, and on the following day were 
able to pursue the voyage under sail, naming islands 
and rivers as they passed along. They were, however, 
much impeded by loose ice and fog, which sometimes 
made it doubtful whether they were following the main 
line of the coast or that of some inlet. On the 28th of 
July, two bags of the pemmicau, on which they chiefly 
relied, were found to be mouldy from wet, and their 
meat had been so badly cured as to be scarcely eatable. 
Seals were the only live animals they saw (and these 
they could not kill) till the 30th, when one small deer 
was shot. 

Having only food enough to last eight days, Franklin 
tried to open communications with the Esquimaux, 
sending Augustus, Junius, and Hepburn to try and 
effect that object. But they came back unsuccessful, 
though they had killed a bear and two small deer. On 
the 3rd of August, in spite of occasional supplies 
of fresh meat, there were only two bags of pemmican 
left, and the men began gloomily to forebode starvation, 
till, by good luck, they killed some bears. But nine 
invaluable days were lost in following the shore of a 
bay, which they named Bathurst Inlet, under the 
impression that it was the main coast-line. The 
Indians, who strike straight across the embouchure of 
a river from point to point, had not, in speaking of the 
coast, described this inlet at all. The Canadians, who 
had hitherto been more or less cheerful, were terrified 



72 Sir yohn Franklin, 

by some rough waves which a breeze blew up, and 
were still more alarmed, chiefly through the cowardly 
example of St. Germain and Adam, when they found 
the canoes badly damaged. Franklin, too, reflected 
that these fresh breezes pointed probably to the break- 
ing up of the season ; that no fish was to be had ; that 
his provisions were all but gone; that they had lost 
too much time to dream of reaching Eepulse Bay ; and 
that the farther they now advanced in that direction, 
the farther would they have to march overland through 
a barren country to Fort Enterprise. So he announced 
on the 15th of August that, unless he met Esquimaux, 
and could^effect satisfactory arrangements with them 
during the next four days, he would return. 

He met no Esquimaux, and a real storm increased 
the desire of his men to be quit of the sea. On the 
18th, therefore, at the spot named Point Turnagain, 
after he had traced the deeply-indented coast 555 
geographical miles, he gave the word for return. " I 
trust," he modestly says, "it will be judged that we 
prosecuted the enterprise as far as was prudent, and 
abandoned it only under a well-founded conviction 
that a further advance would endanger the lives of 
the whole party." Curiously enough, Parry, on that 
very day, sailed out of Eepulse Bay, which was about 
540 miles off. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

franklin's first expedition (continued). 

Return by Land — Terrible Suffering — The Canoes broken — Famine — 
Fishing Nets abandoned — Tripe de Roche — Back sent ahead — 
Richardson's Gallantry — Credit and Vaillant break down — Hood's 
Illness — Heroic Self-sacrifice of Richardson and Hepburn — Perrault 
breaks down — Death of Fontano — Franklin finds Fort Enterprise 
deserted — Richardson rejoins him there. 

FRANKLIN had originally intended to return by 
the same route — that is to say, by the coast to the 
Coppermine River, and then up that river to Point 
Lake. But his experience of the barrenness of the 
country, and the recent storms, induced him to change 
his plan, and make by sea for the lately-christened 
Arctic Sound, and thence up Hood's River as far as he 
could. Then he meant to break up the large canoes, 
and, constructing smaller ones from the materials, 
carry them, and be carried by them in turn, to Fort 
Enterprise. But even before he could leave Point 
Turnagain, he had a foretaste of the miseries which 
were approaching. Rain, followed by a gale, prevented 
him from stirring from his anchorage. Then came a 



74 Sir John Franklin. 

frost, and one of the men had his thighs frostbitten. 
He and another had thrown away meat which they had 
been sent out to procure. Yet another gale hindered 
them setting out till August 23rd, by which time they 
had only enough pemmican left to serve for two meals. 
The terrors of starvation overcame the voyagers' terror 
of the waves, and they volunteered to traverse Melville 
Sound in a rough sea. This they did, after much peril, 
but on landing could find no game, and supped on 
berries and tea made from herbs. 

Next day a respite from starvation came in the shape 
of some deer, and for the rest of the sea- voyage they 
were in no want of food. When they encamped at 
the first rapid of Hood's Eiver, the voyagers could not 
conceal their delight at having left the sea behind for 
ever, and talked over their adventures with much 
humour and exaggeration. This was on the 25th of 
August. The weather was delightfully fine and warm, 
but so hard was the labour of dragging the canoes up 
stream, that they did not accomplish more than twelve 
or fourteen miles during the next two days. On the 
27th they encamped near two magnificent cascades, 
which Franklin called Wilberforce Falls. The rocks, 
through a chasm in which the river flows, are here over 
two hundred feet high. The upper fall is sixty, the 
lower over a hundred feet, the latter being split in two 
by a lofty column of rock. Here the large canoes were 
abandoned. Moose-skin leather was equally divided 



The Return Overland. 



among the men for making shoes ; warm socks and one 
of the tents were given them ; all unnecessary stores, 
as books, etc., were placed en cache; and Franklin 
announced his intention of making for Point Lake, 
distant then in a straight line only a hundred and 
forty-nine miles. 

And now we come to one of the most tragic histories 
ever told. One might call it pathetic, but that, as 
Thackeray says of the circumstances of George the 
Third's madness, it is too terrible for tears. Neverthe- 
less, no one could read Franklin's diary and not be 
touched. It was, it must be remembered, written from 
night to night, after the day had been spent in one of 
the most frightful of all torments, starvation, and when 
death seemed to draw visibly nearer hour by hour. It 
is as if he had written it with his heart's blood, which 
to the last drop he was determined should be shed 
for those at home in England. There is no unmanly 
wailing in it. It is the most matter-of-fact record of 
appalling suffering. Perhaps the most tragic feature 
of it is that at one point the dates cease. Whether he 
had lost count of time or not, it is impossible to say. 
The diary does not cease, though the dates do. Perhaps 
the record of those days was added afterwards, because, 
however willing the spirit was, he found it frequently 
impossible to pen his notes upon the spot. 

On the 1st of September all preparations were com- 
pleted, and they started, each man carrying a load of 



76 Sir Jo hi Franklin. 

about ninety pounds, with which they advanced about 
a mile an hour. They killed a cow in a herd of musk 
oxen, but could not carry much of the meat owing to 
their loads, and because they did not then dream how 
much more precious than any other load meat would 
soon become. A high wind rose, which made the 
carrying of the canoes difficult, and the ground was 
covered with small stones, from which the soft moose- 
skin shoes were but poor protection. All went well, 
however, till they left the river-side to strike direct for 
Point Lake. By the 6th the men had become very 
wayworn, but did not complain, though one was lame 
from inflammation in the knee. The last piece of 
pemmican was given out, with a little arrowroot, and 
they lay down for the night. jSTot to sleep, however, 
for at midnight heavy rain fell, and then snow, followed 
by a violent gale. Having no food, and no means of 
making a fire, they remained in bed all next day. 
Their tents were frozen, and buried three feet deep in 
snow, which even in the inside was several inches 
deep on the blankets. The temperature was at 20°. 
But the pangs of hunger were felt more than the pangs 
of cold. On the 7th they made such shift as they 
could to pack up the frozen tents with their freezing 
hands, weak as they were from fasting, and with their 
garments also stiffened by the cold. Just before they 
set out, Franklin fainted, but recovered after eating a 
morsel of portable soup. For this he makes a charac- 



Horrors of the March. 77 

teristic apology. " I was unwilling at first to take this 
morsel, which was diminishing the small and only 
remaining meal for the party, but several of the men 
urged me to it with much kindness." 

The ground was now buried a foot deep in snow and 
the swamps frozen, but the ice often broke and plunged 
them knee-deep in water. Gusts of wind blew down 
the canoe-bearers repeatedly, and the largest canoe was 
broken beyond repair. The voyagers had grumbled at 
this special duty, and Bennoit was suspected of having 
broken it on purpose. In any case, it was a dreadful 
loss, as the other was not large enough for some 
purposes, and if the party was divided, it was almost 
indispensable that each division should have a canoe. 
However, making the best of a bad business, they lit a 
fire with the broken timbers, cooked the rest of their 
soup and arrowroot, and, after three days' fasting, were 
considerably strengthened by the warmth and by even 
so scanty a meal. They marched in Indian file because 
of the snow. Some object ahead was pointed out to 
the front man, and Hood followed him to keep him to 
his bearings. The last man of the party w T ould in this 
way have much the easiest walking. That night they 
lay down in their wet clothes, after a supper of half-a- 
partridge a-piece, and the glutinous lichen scraped from 
the rocks, called tripe de roche. They did not again take 
off their shoes and stockings, for fear of their freezing. 

On the 8th they reached a river, which Franklin 



78 Sir John Franklin. 

named after his relations, " Cracroft." In crossing it, 
several men fell in, and all were wet to the waist. 
Their clothes froze, and in much pain they marched 
till late, having started at half-past five in the morning. 
A partridge each and tripe de roche was all they had to 
eat at night, " but," says Franklin, " the meal proved a 
cheerful one, and was received with thankfulness." 
One of the hunters being absent with the tent, most of 
the men had to sleep in the open air. On the 9th, 
they came to a place where the river expanded into a 
lake, and, not knowing the course of this lake (the 
Congecatha wha Chaga of Hearne), they determined to 
cross it — an unlucky mistake, which cost them several 
days' additional toil, for they ought to have kept to the 
westward of it, and to the westward of the Conwoyto 
Lake, which subsequently they made a disastrous 
attempt to cross, after a harassing march along its shore. 
The smallness of the canoe made crossing a dangerous 
matter, and the voyagers must now have felt remorse 
at their short-sighted selfishness. One by one each 
man, lying flat on his back, was ferried over in it by 
St. Germain, Adam, and Peltier. On the 10th, musk 
oxen were sighted, and a scene took place which was 
parallelled afterwards in Kane's search for Franklin, 
except that the quarry then was a seal instead of an 
ox. The party halted. The hunters crept ahead. 
Two hours passed before they got within gunshot — 
hours of painful suspense for their comrades, who 



Increased Hardships, 79 

looked on, silently but fervently praying for their 
success. At last a gun went off, and one cow fell. In 
a very few minutes it was cut up and skinned. The 
contents of the stomach were devoured on the spot. 
Next the intestines were swallowed raw, and pro- 
nounced excellent by the most fastidious. That night 
they had a good meal, the first for six days, for tripe 
de roche only allayed hunger for a short time. 

The next day they could not proceed owing to the 
wind, and only had one meal, as the meat would not 
last for more than one more day. When they did 
proceed on the 12th, they all felt much weaker, in spite 
of having thus obtained animal food asrain. On the 
13th they reached Conwoyto Lake, and had laboriously 
to coast along its edge in order to find a crossing-place. 
Here Franklin found that the voyagers had, with mad 
improvidence, thrown away three of the fishing-nets, 
so that there was no fish — on which at the lakes he had 
counted as his chief resource — to be had. The men, 
too, were so much weaker, that it was necessary to 
lighten their loads by leaving behind most of the 
instruments and books. 

On the 14th, Perrault presented the officers with a 
small portion of meat saved from his own allowance — 
"an act of self-denial," says Franklin, "at which our 
eyes filled with tears." Two deer were killed by Credit 
the same day. They now determined to cross the 
water, here three hundred yards wide, and flowing fast 



80 Sir John Franklin. 

over a rocky bed. The canoe, with Franklin, S. 
Belanger, and St. Germain in it, was npset in the 
middle of the rapid. Franklin and St. Germain 
managed to get in again, and, after another upset, 
reached the opposite shore. But Belanger remained on 
a rock, exposed to a strong breeze, when the tempera- 
ture was little above zero. Piteously he cried for help, 
but it was found impossible to get him on board. At 
last the canoe carried him a cord, by which he was 
dragged perfectly senseless through the rapid. He was 
stripped and rolled up in blankets, and two men also 
stripped and lay b} 7 him, but it was some hours before 
he recovered sensation. All this time, Franklin, alone 
with St. Germain on the other side, had, with inex- 
pressible anxiety, been watching what was going on. 
Every minute it seemed as if the canoe would be lost, 
and that, he knew, meant immediate death to himself, 
and the almost equally certain, if more lingering, 
destruction of his companions. 

Most of their meals consisted now of tripe de roche, 
though a deer was shot on the 15th. Besides being a 
poor substitute for meat, this lichen produced stomach 
disorders, from which some of the party suffered severely. 
Even of it there was often but little, and the men grew 
very faint and disheartened, threatening to throw away 
their bundles and leave the officers. The canoe, too, was 
broken by a fall. Poor Hood was in the worst plight 
of all, and Franklin could no longer keep pace with the 



Discipline and Mutiny, 81 

rest. Yet we find a spirited sketch of the march 
inserted in Franklin's journal, which Back must have 
made only four days before this time. And on this 
very day, when at night the blankets did not suffice to 
keep them warm, and the slightest breeze seemed to 
pierce through them, Franklin describes how his party 
passed their time according to their regular routine. 
After encamping, the first operation was to thaw theii 
shoes, if a fire could be lit, and put on dry ones. Each 
officer then wrote notes of the day's events, and prayers 
were read ; then supper was eaten, generally in the 
dark, and they went to bed, keeping up a cheerful con- 
versation till the heat of their bodies thawed the blankets 
sufficiently to admit of sleep. Often they dared not 
take off their wet clothes, for fear they should freeze. 

On the 21st they discovered that they had gone out of 
their route, and Eichardson, who till then had carried his 
geological and botanical specimens, was forced to leave 
them behind. Next day Peltier refused to carry the 
canoe any further, and Yaillant was told to take it. 
While Franklin was rebuking and remonstrating with 
these two, he missed the rest of the party, and when he 
found them, they had lit a fire with some willow 
boughs, and, burning some bones of deer left by wolves 
in the spring, had eaten them and some of their old 
shoes. With them sat the guilty pair, Peltier and 
Vaillant, who now told Franklin, to his inexpressible 
anguish, that the canoe had been rendered useless by 



82 Sir John Franklin. 

another fall, and that they had left it behind. He 
ordered them to fetch it, but they flatly refused. This 
mutinous misconduct, to which the chapter of horrors 
soon to be recorded was chiefly due, proved infectious, 
and when the tracks of Back and the hunters who had 
been sent ahead were lost, the stronger men could only 
be prevented by the entreaties as well as threats of the 
officers from leaving the weaker to their fate. After 
another meal of old shoes and some scraps of leather, 
they came to some pines, and made a good fire ; and, 
what cheered them still more, five deer were shot. Hood 
had, since Wentzel's departure, divided the portions 
of the meat, and done so with the utmost impartiality, 
always taking the smallest portion for his own mess; 
but habitual self-denial is, even among more civilised 
beings, sometimes impotent to satisfy jealous greed, 
and the hunters now grumbled at their share. Every- 
one suffered from eating animal food after such long 
abstinence — those who ate most, most severely. On 
the 26th they reached the Coppermine Eiver, which, 
however, the men would not believe it to be. They 
were reduced to despair, and when convinced it was 
the Coppermine Eiver, and that the rapid they were at 
could easily be crossed in a canoe, they bitterly bewailed 
the loss of the one Peltier and Vaillant had abandoned. 
St. Germain said he could not make one large enough 
of willow-wood, and they were forced to march on in 
the hopes of finding pines. Back and the hunters were 



Richardson s Heroism. 83 

sent on ahead avowedly to procure meat, but Franklin 
told Back, if he could make a raft, to cross Point Lake 
and apprize the Indians of the condition of the party. 

When Back was gone, Franklin had much difficulty 
in keeping his men together. They were beyond fear 
of punishment or hope of reward. Two of them stole 
part of the portions of food fairly allotted to the officers, 
and the hunters often secreted part of the game they shot 
for their own eating. They plucked up some courage 
after devouring a putrid deer which had been found, 
and went back to the rapid to construct a willow 
canoe. Junius was now missing, and no more mention 
is made of him in Franklin's journal, except that he 
probably would try to join the Esquimaux at the 
mouth of the river. Augustus was sent to inform 
Back of the new scheme. A raft was made of bundles 
of willows, but being green it-would not support more 
than one man at a time, and how to guide it was the 
difficulty. A paddle they had was useless against the 
force of the wind which blew from the opposite shore, 
and a pole made of the two tent props would not reach 
the bottom. Eichardson then most gallantly offered to 
swim over with a line, but had gone a short distance 
only when his arms became numbed and powerless. 
Still he persevered, and had almost got across on his 
back, when, to their horror, he suddenly sank. His 
legs had become as numbed as his arms, and so he 
went down. They hauled him back through the water, 



84 Sir John Franklin. 

and then treated him as Belanger had been treated. 
But the skin of the whole of his left side was deprived 
of feeling, in consequence of having been exposed to 
too great heat after his immersion, and did not fully 
recover sensation till the following summer. The 
heroic self-devotion displayed by Eichardson may be 
estimated by the thrill which went through his 
comrades when they saw him stripped, for he was a 
mere skeleton, and the awe-struck Canadians exclaimed 
altogether, "Ah que nous sommes maigres." He had, 
moreover, when entering the water, stepped on a 
dagger, which cut his foot to the bone. 

Augustus returned without having seen Back; and 
as the wind still continued adverse, St. Germain hit on 
the expedient of making a better canoe with the canvas 
wrappings of the bedding. Some men were sent to 
collect pitch from the last pines they had seen, with 
which to pay over the seams ; and, meanwhile, Credit 
brought in the antlers and back-bone of a deer. The 
wolves had failed to extract the spinal marrow, and 
this, though putrid, and so acrid as to excoriate the lips, 
was eaten with avidity. Then the bones themselves 
were burned and eaten. On the 3rd of October, 
Franklin tried to walk to St. Germain, in order to 
stimulate him to be quick with the canoe ; but though 
the distance to be traversed was only three-quarters of 
a mile, he failed to perform it, after trying to wade 
through the snow for three hours, and came back much 



Desperate Straits, 85 

bruised by the many falls he had had. The other 
officers were equally feeble — Hood being reduced to a 
shadow, Eichardson lame, and Back unable to walk 
without a stick. The voyagers were rather stronger, 
but from despair even less capable of exertion. No one 
felt the sensation of hunger any longer, but no one was 
able to talk of hardly anything except eating. Hepburn 
at this crisis saved their lives, patiently and bravely 
gathering tripe cle roche. Hood could not eat this, and 
a partridge reserved for him was stolen by one of the 
men. St. Germain finished the canoe on the 4th, and 
crossed the water first. Then the canoe was drawn 
back by a line, and one by one the rest were hauled 
across in it, but all the clothes and bedding got wet, 
and they could gather no wood to dry them. Back, St. 
Germain, S. Belanger, and Beaupaiiant were at once 
sent off to find the Indians at Fort Enterprise, or at 
least the letter which Wentzel had been ordered to 
leave there, stating their whereabouts. If St. Germain 
killed any animals, he was to cocker them, and con- 
spicuously mark the place. The voyagers were greatly 
cheered, now they were across the water, but no tripe 
cle roche was to be found, and they went supperless to 
bed. Next morning they advanced slowly through the 
snow — Hood, who had become very feeble, walking in 
the rear with Eichardson, who helped him on. The 
tripe de roche disagreed with Credit and Yaillant, as it 
did with Hood, and the former, when he reached the 



86 Sir John Franklin. 

camping-place, was unable to stand. Nothing but tripe 
de roclie and some scraps of roasted leather was to be 
had for supper. On October 6th, "the whole party ate 
the remains of their old shoes and whatever scraps of 
leather they had, to strengthen their stomachs for the 
fatigues of the day," and they crept on over some hills, 
through deep snow, and in a piercingly keen wind. 

About noon, Samandre announced that Credit and 
Vaillant could go no further. Eichardson went back, 
but failed to find Credit. He persuaded Vaillant to try 
and reach the fire, but after staggering a few yards he 
fell, and could not rise, or scarcely answer a question. 
J. B. Belanger went back to Vaillant's help, but found 
him past rousing, and returned with his load. The 
strongest men, though implored to go back and bring 
him to the fire, said they were unable to do so, but at 
the same time begged to be allowed to throw away their 
loads, and get on as fast as they could to Fort Enter- 
prise. This would have been fatal to all, as no officer 
was fit to. accompany them, and they must have lost 
their way. But something had to be done, so it was 
settled that Richardson, with one attendant, should stay 
with Hood at the first place where tripe de roche was 
plentiful. Credit and Vaillant, it was hoped, would 
join them. Meanwhile, Franklin was to push on with 
the rest to Fort Enterprise. On that night they had 
little fire,' and no food. Nor could they sleep for 
thoughts of their two poor comrades lying behind them 



A Sad Parti7ig. 87 



in the snow. On the morning of October 7th, they 
came to a place suitable for the proposed plan. 
Hepburn volunteered to stay with the two, and the 
others, taking the barest necessaries with them, renewed 
their march. In deep distress, Franklin left the friends 
who had become so dear to him, conscious that Hood's 
motive for remaining was to avoid being a burden on 
the others, and that Eichardson and Hepburn, with 
characteristic generosity, were determined to stand by 
him. to the last. Who ever read of self-sacrifice more 
noble ? ~No hasty impulse of valour in the full flush of 
health and strength stirred them. No visions of glory 
gilded for them some sudden peril of death. It was the 
crowning proof of the greatest love that man can show, 
when, after agonies unspeakable, they calmly put away 
the hope just dawning, and prepared to give their lives 
for their friend. Such men's names and memories 
should never die. 

Franklin was now alone with the. Canadians. They 
only had strength to proceed four miles and a-half, and 
Michel and Belanger were left far behind. On coming 
up, they begged to be allowed to go back to Richardson, 
and next morning, October 8th, Franklin granted their 
request. Michel had ten balls and some shot. He 
was very particular in asking the route Franklin would 
take, and volunteered to say he should go and search 
for Yaillant and Credit. The rest of the party again 
essayed to march, but the men were now too weak to 



Sir John Franklin. 



raise the tent. It was therefore cut up, and strips 
taken for covering. Hardly had this been done, when 
Pcrrault and Fontano became dizzy. Tea was made, 
and this and some scraps of burnt leather revived 
them ; but the sight affected the other men, who 
declared they could move no further. Franklin, how- 
ever, his spirit rising, as Kane's did in a similar 
emergency, superior to bodily weakness, so worked on 
them by his arguments and prayers, that they set out, 
leaving Michel and Belanger not yet ready to start the 
other way. For two hundred yards they advanced, 
and then Perrault, again becoming dizzy, begged them 
to halt. This they did, and for ten minutes more he 
accompanied them. Then, bursting into tears, he said 
he was utterly exhausted, and must stop. He was told 
to rejoin Belanger and Michel, and with them to make 
his way to Eichardson. A lake was now crossed, but 
the ice was so smooth, and they so feeble, that the 
wind kept blowing them down with great force, so as 
to shake their whole frames. Fontano was the next to 
give way. The same symptoms showed themselves as 
in Perrault's case, and though overwhelmed with grief, 
he said he could not go on. So he too was told to 
follow the now beaten track backwards, and after 
bidding each of his friends a most tender farewell, he 
set out, they watching him as he moved away. He 
was an Italian, and had been a soldier, and that 
morning had talked to Franklin about his father, and 



Fort Enterprise at last 



his wish to see home again, if he should survive. 
With indescribable anguish Franklin thus parted from 
another of his companions, of whom he had now only 
four left — Adam, Peltier, Bennoit, and Samandre. 

That day they could gather no tripe de roche, owing 
to the severity of the weather, but on the 9th they 
gathered some, and enjoyed the first meal they had 
had for four days, having been existing on scraps of 
leather only during that time. In the afternoon they 
reached Marten Lake, and, finding it frozen, exulted at 
being able to keep straight on to Fort Enterprise. 
They encamped on the banks of Winter River, but 
could not make a fire large enough to thaw their shoes, 
and having no food, crept under their blankets. But 
one thought buoyed them up — they were close to Fort 
Enterprise— and they chatted cheerfully till they fell 
asleep. On the 10th, with much pain, caused by 
frequent falls in a stony valley, they obtained some 
pine wood, and, making a good fire, drank some herb 
tea, and ate some of their shoes. Then they lay down 
full of thankfulness, for on the morrow they felt sure 
they would reach the Fort, where once more they 
hoped to revel in shelter and food, and above all, to 
be able to send help to the friends they had left 
behind them. The morrow came. They could not 
as usual talk, but walked on in silence. 

" Their very hopes belied their fears, their fears their hopes 
belied." 



90 Sit John Franklin. 

They reached the Fort. Alas ! it was desolate. No 
food was in it. No letter from Wentzel. Not a trace 
of the Indians. All four of the poor fellows burst 
into tears, less for themselves than for Hood and 
Hepburn and Eichardson, whose fate they felt was 
sealed. 

A note from Back was found, saying that he was 
going to search for the Indians, and if he could not find 
them, attempt to reach Fort Providence. Franklin 
himself determined to go in search of them, but first it 
was necessary to recruit his strength. The parchment 
had been torn from the windows, and the wind whistled 
through the room. But they placed planks across, and 
were overjoyed to find some deer-skins and bones on 
which they could subsist for a time. For firing, they 
pulled up the floor of the other rooms. For water, they 
melted the snow. And while supper was being pre- 
pared, Augustus came in, having made his way alone 
over a country he had never traversed before. Next 
morning Franklin was so swollen as to be unable to 
walk more than a few yards, and Adam could not rise 
without help. The others gathered tripe de roche, and 
with the bones a soup was concocted, which, though it 
excoriated the mouth, seemed palatable to these 
starving men. On the 13th, S. Belanger arrived, 
bringing a note from Back, who had failed to find the 
Indians, and asked for instructions. Belanger came in 
almost speechless, and coated with ice, having fallen 



A Forlorn Hope. 91 

into a rapid, and for the third time narrowly escaped 
drowning. His comrades nursed him tenderly, the 
soup and warmth having apparently much improved 
their morale, for they were no longer intent on self- 
preservation, or impatient, and had given up swearing. 
Belanger himself, however, behaved badly. He would 
not describe where Back was, his reason being, as was 
discovered next day, that he feared any addition to 
Back's party would lessen his share of what St. 
Germain might kill. He also tried to entice away the 
hunter, Adam, with the only kettle there was in the 
house, without which its inmates could not have lived 
two days. So sadly had hardships corrupted an ordi- 
narily diligent and well-behaved man. Adam was 
much too ill to walk, and, as Peltier and Sarnandre' 
volunteered to stay with him, Franklin, Bennoit, and 
Augustus set out to look for the Indians, Back having 
been told by letter to make for Eeindeer Lake. The 
leader neglected no duty before he went. He packed 
up the journals of the party, with a letter for the 
Under-Secretary of State, which he told the men in the 
house to forward by the Indians. Another letter he 
left for Bichardson and Hood. He made the three 
promise to eat two meals every day, and to send the 
first Indians who came to Bichardson's assistance. 
And then, when the hour < came to face again the 
terrible perils of the way without the comrades who so 
long had shared, them, " no language," says Franklin, 



92 Sir John Franklin. 

" that I can use could adequately describe the parting 
scene." He was, however, soon back again with them, 
having broken his snow-shoes the following day, so as 
to be unable to keep up with Bennoit and Augustus, to 
whom he gave a note to Back, asking him to send meat 
from Eeincleer Lake. He found Samandre prostrate 
with despair, and Peltier doing all the labour of collect- 
ing wood. Franklin became cook, but was too weak 
to pound the bones, so Peltier did that as well as 
collect wood. Adam and Samandre would not quit 
their beds, and shed tears all day long. 

At this point in Franklin's journal we find three 
days omitted — a fact of terrible significance. All four 
grew gradually weaker. So hard was it to rise when 
once they were seated, that frequently they had to lift 
each other up. Yet still their talk continued cheerful. 
Peltier began to pull down the partitions of the next 
house for firewood. Though he had only to go twenty 
yards, the labour exhausted him so much that soon he 
could scarcely lift his hatchet, and on the 29th could 
only cut a few pieces of wood. Luckily some bark was 
found to kindle a fire. A herd of reindeer was seen, 
but even if they had been within reach, not a man 
could have fired a gun without resting it. That 
evening, as they sat round the fire, Peltier exclaimed, 
" Ah, le moncle." The Indians, he fancied, were in the 
other room. The next moment Eichardson and Hep- 
burn walked in. Peltier was at first too disappointed 



Return of Richardson. 93 

to speak. Franklin was full of dreadful forebodings, 
which Eichardson's first words realised. Hood was 
dead. Michel was dead. Perrault and Fontano had 
neither been seen nor heard of. The new-comers were 
shocked at the skeleton-like appearance of the men in 
the house, who, in their turn, beheld with dismay that 
Eichardson and Hepburn were mere skin and bone. 
The Doctor begged his friends not to speak in such a 
sepulchral tone, not knowing that his own was pitched 
in the same key. Hepburn had shot a partridge, which 
was divided into seven portions and ravenously devoured, 
being the first flesh they had tasted for thirty-one days. 
Eichardson did all he could to rouse his comrades, and 
next day went out after deer with Hepburn. They 
were unsuccessful, however, though the gallant Hepburn 
stayed out till late. But they collected more deerskins 
from the snow, and in the evening, after supper, 
Eichardson told Franklin the following horrible 
narrative, which till then he had apparently dreaded to 
relate. 



CHAPTER VII. 

franklin's first expedition (continued). 

Richardson's Narrative — Murder of Hood — Michel shot — Fearful 
Sufferings at Fort Enterprise — Death of Peltier and of Samandie 
— The Indians come — The Party reach Akaitcho's Camp — Back's 
Adventures— Death of Beauparlant — Return to England. 

WHEN Franklin had departed, Bichardson, Hood, 
and Hepburn sat by the fire as long as it lasted, 
and then went to bed, where they remained all next 
day, reading to each other portions of some religious 
books which a lady in London had given them, and so 
comforted by their trust in an omnipresent Being that 
they felt their situation to be no longer destitute, and 
talked cheerily, confiding to each other their past lives, 
and speaking of the future with hope. " Had my poor 
friend," says Bichardson, "been spared to re-visit his 
native land, I should look back to this period with 
unalloyed delight." The day after this conversation, 
Michel, the Iroquois, came in. He said he had missed 
his way, and passed the night on the snow, and that 
J. B. Bel anger had left the fire before him, and must 



Michel's Villainy. 95 

also, as he had not arrived, have missed his way. He 
produced a hare and partridge, which they received 
with intense gratitude. As he complained of cold, 
Hood said he would share his buffalo robe with him at 
night. Eichardson gave him one of his two shirts, and 
Hepburn exclaimed, " How I shall love this man if I 
find that he does not tell lies, like the others!" a 
remark which speaks volumes about "the others." 
Michel next day conducted them straight to the pines 
where he had left Franklin, as being better camping- 
ground; and they did not notice that he must there- 
fore have lied in saying he had lost his way in coming 
thence. They left him there at his own desire, but 
were obliged themselves to return for one night to 
their first encampment, as they had been unable to 
carry everything away in one journey. They did not 
find Michel when they again reached the pines. When 
he did come in, he produced part of what he said was a 
wolf, which he had found pierced by a deer's horn. 
They did not guess then, but soon afterwards became 
convinced, that this was in reality part of the body of 
Perrault or Belanger, whom this accursed Iroquois had 
murdered and chopped up with his hatchet. Probably 
he had slain Belanger when Perrault came up, and 
then, to prevent detection, had killed him too. This 
was why he had asked for a hatchet the night before, 
and insisted on staying alone at the pines. His 
conduct, however, soon excited suspicion. He would 



96 Sir John Franklin. 

not sleep in the tent at night, nor accept Bichardson's 
company when he went hunting, and when he went 
hunting himself, came back very soon. He also said 
he wished he had gone with Franklin, and would 
go now if he knew the way. In vain they tried to 
soothe him. He grew very surly, and would neither 
cut wood nor hunt. So Eichardson thought it best 
to promise that, if he would hunt diligently for 
four days, he would send him with Hepburn to 
Franklin. 

Hood now became rapidly weaker ; the least breeze 
seemed to blow through him, and though Eichardson 
lay close to him at night, the heat of their bodies could 
not thaw the frozen rime on the blankets formed by 
their breath. Still he never complained, and spoke 
hopefully of his future prospects. Each in fact felt 
that he dared not speak, or think of the horrors of his 
present state, lest he should go mad, for the mind's 
strength had decayed with that of the body. On the 
19th, Michel again refused to hunt, and, growing angry 
at their remonstrances, made this significant remark, 
" It is no use hunting. There are no animals. You 
had better kill and eat me." On the 20th, a similar 
scene occurred, and Eichardson, going out to gather 
tripe de roche, left Hood sitting in front of the tent 
arguing with Michel. Suddenly he heard a shot, and 
the next minute Hepburn called out to him to come at 
once. He did so, and found Hood shot through the 



Death of Hood. 97 

head. At first lie thought the poor fellow had com- 
mitted suicide, but Michel's behaviour excited other 
suspicions, which grew stronger when he found the shot 
had entered at the back of the head. Being questioned, 
Michel said Hood had sent him into the tent for 
another gun, and that the long gun went off while he 
was inside. But Hepburn had heard angry words, and, 
directly the shot was fired, had seen Michel rise before 
the tent just behind Hood. Michel did not call to 
him for some time, and he suspected nothing, thinking 
the gun was only fired to clean it. The man's own 
behaviour condemned him. Though not charged with 
the murder, he went on saying he was incapable of 
such an act, and would not leave the two Englishmen 
by themselves for a moment. All that could be done 
at present was to remove the body to a clump of 
willows hard by, for they could not bury it, and sadly 
read the funeral service by the tent fire. Richardson 
— a doctor, it must be remembered — says that Hood 
had suffered more than any one of the survivors, and 
speaks of the patience and fortitude with which he 
sustained " unparallelled bodily sufferings." Some of 
the sketches which illustrate Franklin's narrative 
evince the skill and taste of the ardent young 
Englishman thus foully murdered. 

Meanwhile, the assassin was gradually throwing 
aside the mask. He said he would not go to the Fort — 
kept muttering to himself — tried to get them to go to 



98 Sir John Franklin. 

the woods, where he said he could maintain himself all 
the winter — threatened Hepburn, and said he hated the 
French (by which phrase he meant the white people), 
who had killed and eaten his uncle and two of his 
relations. It was clear that they must kill him, or he 
would kill them, and at the first moment he left them 
together, Hepburn offered to do the deed. But if it 
was to be done, Richardson felt he must take the 
responsibility on himself, and when Michel returned, 
he shot him with a pistol through the head. The one 
genuine pleasure which the reader of this story feels is 
that that pistol did not miss its aim. The rest of 
Richardson's narrative is soon told. He and Hepburn 
repeatedly sank under the load of their blankets, when 
each would help the other to rise. They found the 
spine of a deer, and fed on the acrid marrow. 
Richardson became so feeble that, when the track lay 
through some large stones, he fell more than twenty 
times, and at last could not stand. But the staunch 
Hepburn, exerting himself beyond his strength, lit a 
fire speedily, and saved his life. They became so dazed 
by fatigue and want of food that they lost their way 
when quite near the Fort, which at last they reached, 
as already related. 

Fontano, Credit, Perrault, J. B. Belanger, Michel, 
and Hood had thus perished. But death had not yet 
done his work. On November 1st, Peltier could not 
eat any tripe de roche, owing to the soreness of his 



More Deaths. 



throat. He slid from his stool upon his bed, seemingly 
to sleep. Two hours later, his companions were alarmed 
at hearing the death-rattle in his throat, and he died 
during the night, and so did Samandre. They were 
too weak to bury the bodies, or even carry them to the 
river. All their united strength could effect was to 
remove them to the next room. Both men were in 
the end killed by mental despondency acting on 
enfeebled frames. Peltier had fixed on the 1st as 
the day after which he should cease to expect the 
Indians, and as the day, therefore, of his own death. 
Samandre gave up all hope on witnessing Peltier's fate. 
Peltier was mourned by all, having won their warm 
regard by his cheerfulness, activity, and tender care of 
the sick. 

The loss of his two comrades terribly affected Adam, 
who had been plucking up health and spirits before. 
He could no longer bring in the wood, and Franklin was 
forced to be with him constantly, talking to cheer him, 
and lying by his side at night. In this dark hour the 
superiority of moral over physical qualities was strik- 
ingly illustrated, as the hunters were naturally of course 
hardier men than the English, because seasoned to the 
country. But though still " full of hope," Eichardson 
and Hepburn began to give way, and could only collect 
wood enough to build up the fire thrice in the day. 
The labour of separating the hair from the deer-skins 
had become so wearisome that they ate less than they 



100 Sir John Franklin.^ 

would otherwise have done. Matters grew daily worse 
and worse. On the 6th, Adam could scarcely eat. 
Hepburn was half-an-hour in cutting a piece of wood 
which it had taken the Doctor another half-hour to 
drag thirty yards. They w 7 ere all covered with sores 
from lying on the floor, yet so weak as to find turning 
as they lay a labour. In sleep only were they happy, 
dreaming often about feasting. When awake, they 
talked of anything rather than their sufferings or of the 
chance of relief. They became pettish as their minds 
grew weaker, and each thought the other's intellect 
weaker than his own. One would recommend another 
to remove to a warmer place, and would fretfully chide 
him if, from dread of moving, he did not stir. Then he 
would feel compunction and express regret, but directly 
afterwards would be as fretful as before. No one, for 
instance, could carry wood to the fire well without 
help, but each was offended if offered it. Once Hep- 
burn said — " Dear me, if we are spared to return to 
England, I wonder if we shall recover our understand- 
ings/' But it is darkest before dawn, and at last the 
worst was ever. On November 7th, as Adam was 
almost speechless, Franklin remained in bed with him 
to try and cheer him. All of a sudden he heard a noise, 
which he thought must be the house falling in on 
Hepburn and Eichardson, who were cutting wood. 
But it was not. It was a musket shot. It was the 
Indians. 



Relief at last, 101 



The food they brought was too eagerly devoured by 
all but Adam, who could not feed himself, and they 
suffered dreadfully in consequence all night. He 
steadily revived. Richardson cautioned them to be 
moderate, but was unable to practise what he preached. 
Hope, however, was too potent a healer to be cheated 
now. A note was at once returned by one of the 
Indians, telling Back to send more meat. Two remained 
to look after the sick. To the feeble eyes that watched 
them, they seemed gigantic figures of supernatural 
strength and activity. They prevailed on their patients 
to wash and shave. Strength revived so rapidly with 
plenty of food, that the weather seemed to have grown 
milder in proportion as they acquired greater resistance 
to the cold. There was a temporary relapse when it 
was found that the Indians had stolen away with the 
intention of going to Akaitcho for more help, and 
Adam again became very desponding ; but on the 15th 
another party of Indians arrived with Bennoit, and a 
note from Back, who was preparing to go to Fort 
Providence. It was on the 16th that the whole body 
finally left Fort Enterprise, and by dint of most tender 
care on the part of the Indians, who gave them their own 
snow shoes, lifted them when they fell, cooked for them, 
and fed them like children, they reached Akaitcho's camp 
on the 26th. They were received in profound silence, 
and with every demonstration of heartfelt compassion, 
Akaitcho cooking for them with his own hands. His 



102 Sir yohn Franklin. 

brothers and Augustus were with him in perfect 
health. 

On the 6th of December, S. Belanger arrived from 
Fort Providence, bringing some spirits and tobacco for 
the Indians, a change of dress for the Englishmen, some 
tea and sugar, letters from England, and from Back and 
Wentzel. They now heard of Parry's successful 
voyage, of the promotions of Franklin, Back, and Hood, 
of the union of the two rival Companies, of the non- 
arrival at Fort Providence of the goods which had been 
ordered thither as rewards for Akaitcho, and of the 
hardships undergone by Wentzel and his band on their 
march along the Coppermine Eiver, they having 
lived entirely on tripe de roche for eleven days. Then 
they enjoyed the intense luxury of changing their linen, 
which they had worn for nearly three months and 
a-half. 

Leaving Akaitcho on the 8th, they reached Fort 
Providence on the 11th, where Weeks partly atoned 
for his previous misconduct by the hearty welcome he 
gave them. Here they waited till Akaitcho came, in 
order to make him a present of such goods as could be 
collected from Moose Deer Island. Akaitcho came on 
the 14th, and, so far from being sulky at the sinallness 
of the present, expressed himself with great magna- 
nimity. "The world," he said, "goes badly. All are 
poor; you are poor; the traders appear to be poor; I 
and my party are poor likewise, and since the goods 



Akaitcho's Generosity, 103 

have not come in, we cannot have them. I do not 
regret having supplied you with provisions, for a 
Copper Indian can never permit white men to suffer 
from want of food on his lands, without flying to their 
aid. I trust, however, that we shall, as you say, receive 
what is due next autumn ; and, at all events, it is the 
fiist time that the white people have been indebted to 
the Copper Indians. I know," he proceeded, "you 
write down every occurrence in your books, but pro- 
bably you have only noticed the bad things we have 
said and done, and have omitted to mention the good.'' 
So he begged them to represent him as favourably as 
possible to their countrymen, and incidentally remarked 
that they had always spoken well of the traders to him. 
This must have been a humiliating thing for Weeks to 
hear, as it completely demolished the only defence — a 
mean and paltry one at best — he could offer for his 
conduct in spreading mischievous reports about the 
expedition. Adam was now discharged, being anxious 
to cast in his lot with the Copper Indians. The three 
Englishmen, after a warm farewell from Akaitcho, set 
out, with Bennoit, Belanger, and Augustus, for Moose 
Deer Island, arrived on the 18th of December, 1821, and 
stayed there till May the following year. At Moose 
Deer Island Back was once more re-united to his 
friends, and he had a tale to tell almost as harrowing as 
their own. 

He w T as sent, it will be recollected, by Franklin to 



104 Sir John Franklin. 

Fort Enterprise, in company with St. Germain, Belanger, 
and Beauparlant, on October the 4th. They only 
advanced four miles that day, what with wind, snow, 
and swampy ground, and at night supped on tripe de 
roche and old leather. Their first serious accident was 
Belanger's breaking through the ice, and being in 
danger of freezing, but luckily they found brushwood 
enough to build a fire, by which he was dried. Back 
was very weak and sore at the joints, especially between 
the shoulders — so much so, that he was forced to use a 
stick to extend his arms, as he could not bear them to 
remain hanging down for long together, In the after- 
noon they devoured an old pair of leather trousers. On 
reaching Marten Lake they found it frozen, but the 
men did not recognise it for some time. When per- 
suaded of its identity, they all exclaimed, " Mon Dieu, 
nous sommes scmvh" The luckless Belanger again fell 
through the ice in deeper water, and was only rescued 
by their fastening their worsted belts together and 
hauling him out. They then forced him on as fast as 
his frozen clothes would allow till they reached some 
pines. But though he sat so near the fire as twice to 
set his hair alight, he did not get warm till nightfall. 
On the 8th they were too weak to make headway 
against the wind, which kept blowing them over, so 
they encamped under some pines, and regaled them- 
selves on a pair of old shoes and a gun-cover. Crawling 
on, only buoyed up by one thought, that Fort Enter- 



Back's Story. 105 



prise was at hand, they reached that spot on the 9 th. 
The appalling spectacle of a deserted house, which had 
evidently been the resort of wild animals, met their 
gaze, and affected them as it did Franklin afterwards. 
Hunger for once proved a blessing, for they could, after 
the first shock, think only of satisfying that. After 
their meals of shoes, gun-covers, and trousers, a deer's 
neck which they found was a dainty dish. Besting for 
a day, they set out to search for the Indians, intending 
to follow the deer into the woods, so long as that did 
not take them out of their route, and so collect food 
enough to last till they reached Fort Providence. On 
the 13th and 14th, the same terribly terse entry occurs 
in Back's journal, " we had nothing to eat," reminding 
one of Johnson's celebrated Tuus irnpransus. St. 
Germain was an unsatisfactory hunter, and, in uncer- 
tainty what to do, Back despatched Belanger to Fort 
Enterprise, as before related, for instructions. He 
himself was to wait till he returned at a place four 
miles further on, where he hoped to catch some fish. 
While Beauparlant was cutting fuel, his face became so 
swollen that he could hardly see. Back lost his 
temper on the most trivial occasions, and was become 
very peevish. His shoulders were as if they would fall 
from his body. His legs seemed unable to support 
him. He would sooner have stayed where he was, at 
ail risks, if his duty to his fr.ends had not nerved 
him to move. As it was, he could only traverse 



106 Sir John Franklin. 

three-quarters of a mile before he was forced to 
encamp. 

On the 16th, while trying to march the remaining 
three miles to their destination, Beanparlant said he 
was much weaker, to which no attention was paid, as 
each felt the same thing. A little further on, he said 
he should never get beyond the next encampment, and 
asked where it was to be. St. Germain pointed to a 
clump of pines ahead. " Well," said Beauparlant, 
"take your axe, Mr. Back, and I will follow at my 
leisure. I shall join you by the time the encampment 
is made." St. Germain spied some crows on some pine 
tops, and said there must be a dead animal near. Soon 
the cry, " Oh, merciful God, we are saved ! " broke from 
their lips, as they saw several heads of deer half-buried 
in the snow and ice, eyeless and tongueless indeed, but 
otherwise saved from the wolves by the previous hard 
weather. St. Germain made the camp. Back was too 
far spent to help him. But for the meat, he says, he 
must have perished within twenty-four hours. As it 
was, the sight of it so stimulated him, that, with 
incredible exertion, he carried several of the heads, one 
by one, thirty paces to the fire. It grew dark, and 
Beauparlant did not arrive. So they fired guns, and 
shouted to him, and he fired, and called faintly in 
return. St. Germain refused to return for him, as he 
said he should never make his way back. They could 
only hope that,* having Back's blanket and means 



Beauparlanfs Death. 107 

for lighting a fire, lie had encamped. They had no 
sleep that night, suffering excruciating torments from 
having eaten too much meat, though Back did not eat 
one-quarter of what would have satisfied him. Next 
morning he sent St. Germain back for Beauparlant 
while he prepared breakfast. With tears in his eyes, 
St. Germain came back saying that Beauparlant was 
dead, that he hfld found him on a sand-bank frozen to 
death, with his limbs enormously swollen, and as hard 
as ice. Back suppressed his own emotions to avoid 
depressing his companion; but he felt their situation 
to be almost hopeless, the more so that, as Belanger 
had not returned, he felt some great calamity had 
probably happened. 

At length, on the 18th, they saw Belanger tottering 
round a point. He was just able to say that five, with 
the Captain, were at the house, and the rest at the 
river, but was too weak to tell the whole tale. When 
he partially recovered, his news set St. Germain crying, 
and Back, who had shown more composure during the 
recital, when he received Franklin's letter, and read the 
same story " in another language, mingled with the 
pious resignation of a good man," could bear up no 
longer, and gave way to his grief. Belanger, too, was 
greatly affected at Beauparlant's death, but that and 
every other feeling was absorbed by his present crave 
for food. He ate for two hours — chiefly skin and 
sinews — and then complained of hunger. Back now 



108 Sir John Franklin, 

proposed to go to Reindeer Lake, but both men refused 
point blank. St. Germain said he did not know the 
way, and they declared they would stay where they 
were till they had recovered their strength. Being 
quite helpless, he was forced to acquiesce, and from 
the 19th to the 25th they did nothing but collect such 
scraps of skin and bone as they could, as provisions for 
the way. Even these he could scarcely •induce them to 
husband, as they would snatch the piece nearest them 
the moment his back was turned, and swallow it raw. 
He was the weakest of the three, and the soles of his 
feet were cracked all over, but he constantly urged his 
companions to rejoin Franklin, who he now concluded 
was at or on his way to Fort Providence. At last 
they were persuaded to set out, and they came on the 
track of the party with which Franklin had started, 
but from which he had returned to Fort Enterprise. 
The marks of the encampment were so small that Back 
augured some great disaster, but the men absolutely 
refused to turn back to Fort Enterprise to see what 
had happened, and the distress of mind he was in, 
added to his bodily weakness, which was now aggra- 
vated by a frozen face, almost prevented him from 
proceeding at all. But now help was at hand. On 
November 3rd, a cry was heard from Belanger, who 
was ahead-—" Footsteps of Indians." St. Germain was 
sent on their tracks, and in the evening an Indian boy 
brought meat, and that note which Franklin had sent 



WentzeVs Defence. 109 

by Bennoit and Augustus. Back soon readied Akaitcho, 
and early next morning a cargo of meat was sent off to 
Fort Enterprise. The Indian who returned thence at 
first said that all of the party were dead. Subsequently 
he produced Franklin's note, and Back, after arranging 
for further supplies being sent to the Fort, set out 
himself for Fort Providence. 

Little now lemains to be told of this memorable 
expeditiou. It was extremely gratifying to Franklin 
to be able to pay Akaitcho in full before he left the 
Great Slave Lake, the more so as the Indians were in 
great distress. On the 2nd of June, he reached Fort 
Chipewyan, and met Wentzel, who accounted for not 
fulfilling his orders in the following way : — " Humpy." 
he said, "had failed to keep tryst with Akaitcho. The 
Indians, after suffering great hardships, were disap- 
pointed at this, and abused him for having led them 
from their families, so, though still professing to be 
willing to execute their compact, they did nothing. 
As for Humpy, he was found destitute of ammunition, 
and actually starving, and soon afterwards he lost 
three of his hunters. He himself had written no note 
because he had no paper, but he had left a plank at 
Fort Enterprise on which he had written his report to 
Franklin, and this some Indians must have destroyed. 
While there, the two Indians with him laid up no 
food, because one would not hunt for fear of meeting 
the Dog Eib Indians, and the other was lame." Lame, 



110 Sir John Franklin. 

indeed, this apology reads, and Franklin remembered 
offering Wentzel paper at parting, which he declined, 
having then a note-book. But, on the whole, it must 
be taken into consideration that he had had a most 
difficult task to perform, and that he was almost 
powerless to conteDd against the opposition of the 
Indians. 

In 1833, Back in his expedition to the Great Fish 
Kiver met Akaitcho again, and was again indebted to 
him for supplies of food in a trying winter. But with 
true Indian reticence, he never asked after Franklin 
and Eichardson on first seeing Back, though he seemed 
glad to hear about them, and to receive some remem- 
brances they had sent him. 

On the 14th of July, Franklin reached York Factory, 
thus completing a journey of 5,550 miles, and one of 
the most eventful ever recorded. Of the twenty-four 
men who set out with him originally, ten were dead, six 
had been discharged before the hardships began, and 
nine survived them. Of the two Esquimaux, Junius 
was lost ; Augustus, Franklin was to meet again. The 
faithful Hepburn was, it is pleasant to know, rewarded 
with a snug berth at home, and afterwards in Tasmania. 
In all those terrible days, neither his affection nor that 
of the officers for their chief had ever wavered. A 
leader who succeeds never lacks followers. He who 
fails, but does not forfeit the confidence of brave and 
able men, has proved his great qualities by even a 



The Ruling Passion. Ill 

higher title. Franklin may well have felt proud of the 
devotion of such men after such disasters. It only 
remains to say that this expedition returned to 
England in 1822, and that Franklin, Kichardson, and 
Back actually volunteered for another expedition to the 
same region in 1824. Surely every Englishman may 
feel proud that he is of one blood with that 
Triumvirate. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

fkanklin's second expedition. 

Honours conferred on Franklin — His first Marriage — Parry's Congra- 
tulations — Preparations for an Expedition down the Mackenzie — 
Richardson and Back volunteer — Preliminary Expeditions of 
Franklin and Eichardson. 

WHEN Franklin reached England, he was received 
with the utmost enthusiasm, and became at once 
the hero of the hour. The sufferings he had undergone, 
and the modesty with which he related them, excited 
the curiosity and delight of all classes. He was made 
post-captain, and elected a member of the Eoyal Society, 
and in 1823 he married Eleanor Anne Porden — the 
youngest daughter of a London architect, and authoress 
of two poems, " The Veils," and " Coeur de Lion, or the 
Third Crusade" — who died in 1825. Nowhere was 
admiration of his achievement stronger than in his own 
profession. The following letter, from Sir Edward 
Parry, is equally honourable to the writer and the 
recipient of it : — 



Parry s Letter. 113 



Stamford Hill, October 23rd, 1823. 

My Dear Franklin, 

I can sincerely assure you that "it was 
with no ordinary feelings of gratification that I read your 

kind letter of congratulation on my return. 

Of the splendid achievements of yourself and your brave 
companions in enterprise I can hardly trust myself to speak, 
for I am apprehensive of not conveying — what, indeed, never 
can be conveyed adequately by words — my unbounded 
admiration of what you have, under the blessing of God, 
been enabled to perform, and the manner in which you have 
performed -it. To place you, in the rank of travellers, above 
Park and Hearne and others, would, in my estimation, be 
nothing in comparison of your merits. But in you and your 
party, my dear friend, we see so sublime an instance of 
Christian confidence in the Almighty, of the superiority of 
moral and religious energy over mere brute strength of body, 
that it is impossible to contemplate your sufferings and 
preservation without a sensation of reverential awe. I have 
not yet seen your book, and have only read the Quarterly 
Review. This latter was put into my hand at Shetland, and 
I need not be ashamed to say that I Gried over it like a 
child. The tears I shed, however, were those of pride and 
pleasure — pride at being your countryman, brother officer, 
and friend — pleasure in seeing the virtues of the Christian 
adding their first and highest charm to the unconquerable 
perseverance and splendid talents of the officer and the man. 

I shall only add that I am, my dear Franklin, your ever 
faithful and most sincerely admiring friend, 

W. E. Parry. 

H 



114 Sir John Franklin. 

Franklin soon received a proof of esteem and con- 
fidence more gratifying even than this generous tribute 
from his brother-in-arms. His ardent spirit could not 
rest satisfied while so much of the north coast of 
America remained unexplored, and he submitted to the 
. Government a plan for a second expedition, offering 
to carry it out in person. Immediately it was known 
that his offer was accepted, a number of able and 
experienced officers eagerly came forward and proffered 
their services. Among the first were Back and 
Eichardson, the latter giving up a good position at 
home, and leaving a wife to whom he was tenderly 
attached, in order to accompany his old friend. The 
other officers selected were Mr. Kendall, who was to 
be assistant surveyor, and Mr. Drummond, assistant 
naturalist. Mr. Dease, chief trader of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, was to look after the arrangements with 
the Indians and Canadian voyagers. The Hudson's 
Bay Company entered warmly into the project, and 
ordered their officials in the Fur Countries to provide 
dep6ts of provisions at the places which Franklin 
specified. As pemmican could not be supplied in 
sufficient quantity sooner than the spring of 1825, that 
was the date fixed for the arrival of the expedition in 
the Fur Countries. Stores were forwarded in 1824 to 
Mr. Dease at the Athabasca Lake. He was to organise 
a party, and after wintering with them at Great Slave 
Lake, to proceed to Great Bear Lake in the spring of 



Plan of Operations. 115 

1825, and begin the buildings for the expedition* 
Great Bear Lake was chosen as the head-quarters 
of the expedition, being the station nearest to the 
mouth of the Mackenzie Eiver capable of supplying 
such numbers with fish. Two carpenters, and a party. 
of men with, three light boats and more stores, were 
sent to York Factory in 1824. They were to go to 
Cumberland House that season, and get on as early 
as possible the next spring towards Bear Lake. The 
officers were to start in 1825 and make for Lake 
Huron, where two canoes had been sent to await their 
arrival, and thence would catch up the last-mentioned 
detachment on its way to Bear Lake. 

The greatest care had been taken in constructing the 
boats. By hard experience Franklin had learnt the 
weak points in a birch-bark canoe. These boats had to 
be strong enoughHo withstand rough waves, and yet as 
light as possible, in view of portages. They were made 
of mahogany, with ash timbers, and could be steered 
by a sweep-oar, or rudder. The largest, 26ft. by 5ft. 
4in., would carry six rowers, a steersman, an officer, and 
three tons weight. Six men could carry it on their 
shoulders. The other two were a little smaller. A 
fourth boat was called the Walnut Shell. It was 9ft. 
long by 4ft. 4in. broad, was made of ash, covered with 
macintosh canvas, was in shape like half a walnut, 
weighed eighty-five pounds, could be taken to pieces 
and carried in five or six parcels, and could be put 



116 Sir yohn Franklin. 

together in less than twenty minutes. It would doubt- 
less have saved several lives if it had been with 
Franklin in his first expedition. Several ladies were 
paddled across the Thames in it in" a fresh breeze. The 
stores were ample in quantity, and selected with great 
care. 

On the 16th of February, 1825, the officers left 
Liverpool amid the cheers of the chief inhabitants. 
After a pleasant passage they were equally warmly 
received in New York, where no doubt the favourable 
impression produced by Franklin had something to do 
with the genuine and most generous interest shown by 
the Americans in his subsequent fate. After visiting 
Niagara, they crossed Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe, 
and found their canoes in readiness at Lake Huron. 
(Thence, with thirty-three voyagers, they coasted along 
the north shore of Lake Superior as far as Fort 
William, where they exchanged their canoes for 
four small ones, in one of which Eichardson and 
Franklin hurried ahead to organise supplies of pro- 
vieions, while Back brought on the three others. On 
the loth of June they reached Cumberland House, vid 
Kainy Lake, the Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg, 
and the Saskatchawan Eiver, and found their boats had 
left that place on the 2nd, but that Mathews the chief 
'carpenter was lying there with a broken leg. Arranging 
ibr him to be sent on in two months, and for supplies 
l)ei ng sent to Mr. Drummond, who was to make natural 



Objects proposed. 117 

history collections in the Rocky Mountains, Franklin 
reached Isle a la Crosse on the 25th, and overtook the 
boats in Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June. 
Such were the preliminary preparations for, and opera- 
tions of the expedition. It is time to explain what 
were its objects. 

In 1825, Franklin was to proceed to the western side 
of Great Bear Lake, to winter there, and endeavour to 
make friends with the Esquimaux. In 1826, as early 
as possible, in order to avail himself of the first 
opening in the ice-bound sea, he was to advance along 
the coast to Icy Cape, and, doubling it, proceed to 
Kotzebue's Inlet, a bight on the American shore of 
Bering's Straits. There he might expect the Blossom, 
commanded by Captain Beechey, which the Admiralty 
were to send there in 1826, and he mioht embark on 
that ship or return to Great Bear Lake, as he preferred. 
On reaching the mouth of the Mackenzie River, he 
was, if he had stores enough, to despatch Dr. Richard- 
son and Lieutenant Kendall with a party to examine 
the coast from the Mackenzie to the Coppermine River. 
If not, Dr. Richardson was to make a collection of the 
objects of the country, and to lay up depots of pro- 
visions. Meanwhile, Parry was to sail to Lancaster 
Sound, and make his way westwards .as far as he 
could, so that a second time the two friends were 
co-operating in the same enterprise, each on ground 
that he had made his own. 



118 Sir John Franklin. 

: The boats of the expedition had now travelled 1,200 
miles from Hudson's Bay, and the officers had come 
2,800 miles, by New York and Canada, when they met 
at the Methye Eiver, which is almost at the head of 
the waters flowing from the north into Hudson's 
Bay. Franklin was received with enthusiasm by the 
boat party, which was under the charge of a Hudson's 
Bay clerk named Fraser, and no one showed more 
delight than his old friend Augustus the Esquimaux, 
who, instead of the lost Junius, brought with him this 
time a companion called .Ooligbuck. Franklin gave the 
men an hour to read the letters he had brought from 
England, and then lost no time in setting to work. 
.Everyone was forced to walk in the shallow river, 
dragging the boats, and when they reached the Methye 
Portage, one boat was borne on men's shoulders, another 
was dragged by eight men, and the largest was drawn 
on a truck. Nothing of note occurred on the route. 
Franklin reached Fort Chipewyan on the 15th. The 
boats were there by the 18th, and sent on, under 
Eichardson, on the 20th. Back and Kendall, with three 
canoes, arrived on the 23rd. On the 29th, Franklin 
came to Fort Resolution, on the Slave Lake, whence 
Richardson had previously gone forward with the boats ; 
and as all the portages on the way to Bear Lake had 
been passed, his Canadians begged to be allowed a 
dance. They had been paddling for thirty out of the 
thirty-nine preceding hours, but they kept it up till 



News of Akaitcho, 119 

daylight to the music of bagpipes, varied by the Jew's 
harp. At Fort Resolution, Franklin, found two more 
old friends, Humpy and Keskarrah, who, seizing his 
hands and pressing them against their hearts, exclaimed, 
" How much we regret that we cannot tell what we 
feel for you here." Humpy told him that many of the 
hunters he had known at Fort Enterprise had been 
killed by the Dog Eib Indians, and that one motive foi 
the peace which had just been concluded between them 
and the Copper Indians was Akaitcho's wish not to 
imperii the success of the expedition by his wars. 
Akaitcho was now collecting meat for the party, and 
promised to hunt for them ; but not where his men had 
fallen in battle against the Dog Ribs, lest the passion 
of revenge should be too strong, and the flame of war 
should be relighted. He hoped, he had said, that the 
Dog Ribs, though his enemies, would help the English. 
On leaving Fort Resolution, Franklin left also the 
track to Fort Enterprise which he had hitherto been 
pursuing from Lake Winnipeg, and, as his course was 
now westwards, steered for the Buffalo River, and then 
along the south shore of the Slave Lake, past the mouths 
of the Sandy and Hay Rivers, till he came to the spot 
where the Mackenzie River flows out pf the Slave Lake, 
on the 3rd of August. Next day he reached Fort 
Simpson, a Hudson's Bay post 338 miles from Fort 
Resolution, and found that none of the Esquimaux, and 
only a few of the Mackenzie River Indians, had been 



120 Sir John Franklin. 

told of his approach. But two Canadians were waiting 
to serve as guides to Bear Lake, having been sent 
by Dease, who was at that lake, and who, having 
engaged Indian hunters, was overseeing the erection 
of the necessary buildings. On the 7th he reached 
Fort Norman, 236 miles from Fort Simpson, four 
days' march from Bear Lake. Here he determined on 
executing a plan which he had himself formed on 
leaving England, but which he had told his companions 
only at Fort Chipewyan, fearing lest unavoidable delays 
might render it impracticable. It involved the division 
of the expedition into three parties. 

(1) Franklin and Kendall were to go to the sea and 
procure information as to the state of the ice in summer 
and autumn, the trend of the coast east and west of 
the mouth of the Mackenzie, and the prospect of pro- 
visions. This was the most dangerous part to under- 
take, owing to possible encounters with the Esquimaux j 
and though Franklin does not say so, doubtless this 
was one of his reasons for taking it himself. (2) 
Richardson was to go along the north shore of the Bear 
Lake, and select the spot at which he would strike it 
on his overland return from the Coppermine River the 
following year. (3) Back and Dease were to superin- 
tend the fishing and hunting arrangements, and the 
general affairs of the winter establishment then in 
progress. Back was to go on with the canoes, one of 
which he was to give to Richardson. The Canadians 



Preliminary Explorations, 121 

from Lake Huron, and some of the voyagers whom 
Dease had brought, were discharged and sent home- 
wards. The main stores for the next year's voyage 
were left at Tort Norman, which would be on the 
route ; and on August 8th, Franklin set out in the Lion 
with Kendall, six Englishmen, Augustus, and a voyager 
as guide. 

Parting from Back at Bear Lake Eiver, he proceeded 
down the Mackenzie, meeting a body of Hare Indians 
on his way, who carefully scrutinised the figures of 
animals painted on his boat, bursting out laughing 
whenever they recognised one. On the 10th he reached 
Fort Good Hope, 312 miles from Fort Norman, and the 
northernmost station of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
The master, Mr. Dease, was intensely surprised to see 
him so soon, but had some pleasant news to give him — 
viz., that the Loucheux Indians who traded with the 
Fort had just made peace with the Esquimaux, who 
were usually their enemies. Dease went with Franklin 
as far as Trading Eiver, and left with him Baptiste, a 
young half-breed, the interpreter of the Fort, who wished 
to join the Chief of the Loucheux. As they dropped 
down the river, they were hailed by an Indian, who 
undertook to introduce them to his tribe if they would 
carry his baggage. As he looked quite poverty-stricken, 
they at once consented, little thinking that load after 
load of odorous fish would be thrown into their boat. 
By-and-by they came to more Indian lodges, and were 



122 Sir John Franklin, 

received suspiciously till the people saw Augustus, 
whom they caressed and danced round, to show their 
delight. The excellent little fellow's head was not 
turned by his popularity, to which, however, he had no 
objection so long as it did not interfere with his pre- 
paring the officers' breakfast — a duty which it was his 
peculiar delight to perform. These Indians resemble 
the Esquimaux in many of their customs and habits, 
and Franklin was now nearing the region of the latter. 
There were numerous islands in the river, and conse- 
quently many channels ; and when Franklin chose the 
eastern one of several, the Indians who had accompanied 
him instantly turned back. Baptiste was asleep at the 
time, but consoled himself with the thought that he 
should still meet the Loucheux Chief at a place called 
the " Forks," which they had really passed, and his com- 
panions chuckled as they thought of his astonishment 
if the next halloo he heard should come from the lips 
of Esquimaux, of whom he stood in great terror. In 
fact they very soon passed by the huts of those people, 
and once were convinced they heard a human voice, 
but they saw no one, and, following the main stream at 
a point where Sir Alexander Mackenzie took a more 
northern channel, on the 14th of August they were 
delighted by the prospect of wide water ahead, which 
they knew must be the sea. A seal just then appeared,, 
sporting about the boat, as if to confirm their opinion. 
Baptiste began to think it just possible he had gone 



Franklin reaches the Sea. 123 

by the Forks and missed the Chief, but would not be 
satisfied till, on tasting the water, he found it was salt. 
A moose deer and calf, and a reindeer, were killed on 
the 15th, and on the 16th they reached an island from 
a hill on which they saw the sea in all its majesty, 
quite free from ice, and full of seals and whales. Such 
a sight not only augured well for them, but gave them 
lively hopes of the success of Parry's voyage with the 
Hecla and Fury. The island was named, after the 
Deputy-Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Garry 
Island, and a silk Union Jack was hoisted, which 
Franklin's wife had made and given him as a parting 
gift, with the express injunction that it was not to be 
hoisted till he reached the sea. With a spirit as heroic 
as his own, she had on her death-bed besought him to 
start on his voyage on the appelated day, beseeching 
him, if he set any value on her peace of mind, not to 
delay his departure for a moment. Her own hours she 
knew were numbered, and she felt that he would only 
be staying to close her eyes. In fact, he heard of her 
death while he was at New York. With what sad 
memories Franklin obeyed her last wishes may easily 
be imagined, but he says he felt bound to suppress his 
own emotions so as not to damp the general joy, and 
he did his best to return the warm congratulations 
which he received from his men. Three cheers were 
given, and Franklin and Kendall were going to drink 
the King's health, when, at the first taste, they found 



124 Sir John Franklin. 

that it was salt water which Baptiste, in his delight at 
seeing the sea, had given them to mix with their 
brandy. He was immensely elated at having seen the 
sea, and stuck his feathers in his hat, crying out, " Now 
I am one of the Gens de la mer, you shall see how 
active I will be, and how I will crow over the Gens du 
nord" — by whom he meant the Athabasca voyagers. 

On this island Franklin left letters for Parry con- 
spicuously marked. Then, after in vain attempting to 
cross to the eastern coast of the Mackenzie embouchure, 
in order to visit the Eocky Mountains, he began his 
return route on the 18th, leaving presents in the 
Esquimaux huts on his way. On the 21st he regained 
the Loucheux territory, and on the 23rd, Fort Good 
Hope, where he found the Indians had spread a report 
that his party had all been massacred by the Esquimaux. 

On the 1st of September Bear River was entered, and 
much hard tracking had to be done. Bub on the 5th 
Bear Lake was entered, and that night, for the first 
time, all the members of the expedition were assembled 
together, Dr. Richardson having returned already, and 
having fixed, as the place he should make for when he 
should come back from the Coppermine River, the first 
rapid in the river he had named Dease, near the north- 
east corner of the lake. 



CHAPTER IX. 

franklin's second expedition (continued). 

Fort Franklin — Franklin's Letter — Winter Occupations and Prepara- 
tions — The two parties uuder Franklin and Richardson set out. 

IT was now September, and Franklin had travelled 
5,320 miles since he left New York, having in his 
last trip from Bear Lake River to the sea and back 
gone 1,206 miles. The buildings which Mr. Dease had 
been superintending since July formed three sides of a 
square, and included a blacksmith's shop and a meat 
store. They were on the site of an old North- West 
Company's station, on a dry sandy bank about eighty 
yards from and twenty-five feet above the lake. The 
stockade of the old fort still stood, and served as 
a screen from the biting blast and the snow-drifts. 
Besides Bear Lake, they had a view over another small 
lake, so that their winter abode was very prettily 
situated. Franklin had, intended its name to be Fort 
Reliance, but before he came back from the sea the 
officers had christened it Fort Franklin. The members 
of the little community were fifty, consisting of five 



126 . Sir John Franklin. 

officers, nineteen British seamen, marines, and voyagers, 
nine Canadians, two Esquimaux, the interpreter, Beau- 
lieu, and four Chipewyan hunters, three women, six 
children, and one Indian lad. Besides these, there 
were a few infirm Indians requiring temporary support. 
All these did not reside at the Fort, two other fishing 
stations being established at four and seven miles' 
distance. Fifteen or twenty nets were kept in use, 
and as few reindeer were killed by the inexperienced 
hunters, the food mainly relied on was fish. 

Next to the maintenance of the men, their employ- 
ment during the winter occupied Franklin's attention. 
Postal communication with the Slave Lake was kept 
up by two of the best snow-shoe travellers. Some 
carried the fish and the meat home. Some felled wood, 
others carried ifc home, and others again split it up 
for fuel. A school was formed for the men during the 
long evenings, and their amusements were always 
shared by the officers, to whom they became in conse- 
quence more attached. Everyone seemed anxious to 
do his utmost to make the winter pass away as 
agreeably as possible to his neighbours. 

On the 20th of September, Beaulieu brought a supply 
of meat, enough for a month's consumption, and on the 
23rd, as the last chimney of the buildings was finished, 
they were formally opened with the festivities usual in 
the country. The flag was hoisted and saluted. All 
the men and women having formed in line, a deputa- 



A Squabble in Camp. 127 

tion of thern came to invite the presence of the officers, 
who found their guns decked with blue ribbons, and 
were requested to fire at a bit of money fastened to the 
flag-staff. Then the men fired two volleys, gave three 
hearty cheers, and, marching after the piper, who played 
a merry tune on the bagpipes, drank to the King's 
health and the success of the expedition. A dance 
followed at night, which was kept up till daybreak next 
morning. 

During October, enough snow fell to render sledging 
possible, and the carcases of such reindeer as were 
killed, and the fuel, were now brought in by the dogs. 
In November, an odd mistake nearly led to serious 
consequences. The Canadians having asked Mr. Dease 
who the Highlandmen of the party were, were told that 
they were Montagnards — the name they give to the 
Dog Eib Indians. A scuffle ensued on their chaffing 
the Highlandmen as Dog Ribs, and a Dog Rib Indian 
received a blow in it. The ringleaders in the row were 
sent to bed, and the Highlanders were easily pacified 
next morning when the real meaning of " Montagnards" 
was explained to them. But the Dog Rib Indian 
spread a report that the white people were going to 
destroy all the Indians, and, till Franklin carefully 
explained what had happened, his countrymen were 
very shy in their approaches. They found the camp, 
however, an irresistible attraction, and were not alto- 
gether welcome guests. In spite of being given nets to 



128 Sir John Franklin. 

fish, they preferred to beg and gather up the offal of the 
camp. They even robbed the nets more than once, and 
showed themselves a lazy and lying set of people. 
What thoughts and studies occupied Franklin's mind 
during the winter will be best seen from a letter written 
by him, on November 6th, to Mr. (afterwards Sir) E. J. 
Murchison. 

Port Franklin, Great Bear Lake, 
November 6th, 1825. 

Lat. 65° 12' N. ; Long. 123° 5' W. 

My Dear Sir, 

That I have not written to you before, has not 
arisen from want of inclination, but from pressure of business 
at the outset of my journey, and subsequently from my 
mind being unfitted for correspondence by having received 
the account of the severe domestic affliction that I have had 
to sustain. I have little doubt of your having heard of our 
progress from Dr. Fitton, and thorugh other channels, up to 
the date of my last letters — I shall therefore carry you now 
forward from Fort Chipewyan. There, I was enabled from 
the stores of the JEL B Co. to complete our stock of every 
essential article to a sufficiency for two years' consumption, 
and, embarking them in the boats (which you may remember 
had preceded me from England), we set off before the current 
to Mackenzie Eiver. The season had permitted us to reach 
it at an unusually early date, and . therefore I determined to 
distribute the party into three portions, in order to prosecute 
the examination into some points that we wished to have 
ascertained this season, but which, I may add, we could 



Franklin s Letter. 129 

scarcely hope to have done on our quitting England. 
Accompanied by one of the officers, Mr. Kendall, I conr 
tinued the descent of the river to the sea, and we were so 
fortunate as to taste the salt water just six months after our 
departure from Liverpool. By this visit we discovered the 
direction of the coast east and west from the mouth of the 
river, and were enabled to take some steps towards pro- 
curing an interview with the Esquimaux next spring, and 
thus have we facilitated the commencement of our operations 
along the sea coast. At the same time, Dr. Richardson took 
a survey of the northern boundaries of this lake, and found 
its nearest approach to the Coppermine River, so that he has 
determined the point to which his course must be directed 
on his return from the mouth of that river, if he be so 
fortunate as to reach it. While we were thus employed, 
Lieut. Back superintended the building of this establishment, 
which my friends have had the kindness to name Eranklin. 
These were completed last month (Sept.), and we are now 
very comfortably settled for the winter. Our chief depen- 
dence is on the fish which the lake supplies in abundance ; 
but we get a few reindeer, though this supply will gradually 
become less as the season advances, as these animals, during 
the severe weather, retire to the more wooded and bettei 
sheltered parts of the country — not that we want wood here 
for every purpose of fuel, nor is it scarce on the banks of 
the Mackenzie, which are well clothed with trees till you 
reach within fifty miles of the sea. Advanced, as I presume 
you now are, in geological knowledge, an excursion down 
the Mackenzie would be very interesting to you, as its banks 
offer very fine specimens of the coal formation, with its 
neighbouring sand and limestones. The latter abound in 
good specimens of the shells and organic remains peculiar to 



130 Sir John Franklin. 

that series. We have collected a variety of them, and I look 
forward with pleasure to having them explained by our very 
kind friend, Dr. Fitton. We have brought up the collection 
he had the goodness to give us for reference, and our 
excellent friend Dr. Richardson affords all the information 
he hears, or which he can gather from the books we have 
brought respecting them, so that through him we endeavour 
to keep up the information which Dr. Fitton first imparted. 
We have got Conybeare and Phillips, Phillips and Jameson 
on Mineralogy, and Humboldt on the superposition of rocks ; 
but to the inexperienced, one lecture from a person con- 
versant with the science is more profitable than many hours' 
reading on subjects naturally difficult to be comprehended. 
It is evident, too, on the slightest inquiry into Geology, that 
a comparative knowledge of other sciences is requisite — 
Mineralogy and Chemistry for instance, to which I should 
apply more closely, if the opportunity were permitted me, 
than I have yet done. You were wisely laying the founda- 
tion by close application to Mr. Bearde's courses. I have 
been delighted with Dante, and so have my companions ; but 
I must confess there is frequently a depth of thought and 
reasoning to which my mind can hardly reach — perhaps 
these parts will be better comprehended on re-perusal. It 
seems clear that Milton, as well as other poets, have borrowed 
ideas from his comprehensive mind. I am afraid we shall 
not be able to make any satisfactory experiments with the 
balls of Colonel Miller's rifle — those which we have brought 
having unfortunately got the edges of the grooves flattened 
by rubbing against each other, notwithstanding all our care. 
It answers well with the cannon-ball. The circumstance of 
its going off without the aid of flint and steel is a matter of 
never-failing surprise to the Indians, and even to the traders 



Letter continued. 131 

in these distant parts, for the detonating and other improved 
locks have not yet reached so far. We have as yet had no 
severe weather, nor do I think we are likely to have the 
temperature so low as at Fort Enterprise — we are in fact 
much less elevated in this secondary formation than when in 
its vicinity, where the rocks are entirely granite. Until the 
day before yesterday, 20th October, we had comparativcdy 
little snow, and this is the first day that our dogs have been 
used in dragging sledges. Four trains of two dogs each were 
despatched for meat this morning. We endeavour to keep our- 
selves in good humour, health, and spirits by an agreeable 
variety of useful occupation and amusement. Till the snow fell, 
the game of hockey, played on the ice, was the morning's sport. 
At other times Wilson's pipes are put in request, and now 
and then a game of Blind Man's Buff — in fact, any recreation 
is encouraged to promote exercise and good feeling. I wish 
you could pop in and partake our fare ; you would be sure of 
a hearty welcome, and you should have your choice of either 
moose or reindeer meat or trout, weighing from forty to 
fifty pounds; but you must bring wine and bread if you 
wish either for more than one day. I shall send this letter 
to Dr. Fitton, as I recollect you were on the point of chang- 
ing your residence. I beg you to offer my best remembrance 
to Mrs. Murchison, and my friends Dr. R. and Back desire 
theirs to you ; the latter, as well as Mr. Kendall, have made 
several very interesting sketches, which I shall have great 
pleasure in showing you and Mrs. Murchison on our return.- 
1 >id I mention to you that my friend A. Garry, Esq., Deputy- 
Governor of the H. B. Co., has promised to forward any 
letters for the expedition if sent to him at the H. B. house/ 
Fenchurch Street, London 1 and 1 need not now say how' 
happy I shall be to hear from you. Will you tell Mr. 



132 Sir yohn Franklin. 

Gladstone, with my best compliments, that we were delighted 
with the kind reception we met at Liverpool ] 
Ever, my dear Sir, 

Very truly yours, 

John Franklin. 

Good news came from Fort Good Hope on the 20th 
of December. The Loucheux had seen the Esquimaux, 
who had found the presents left for them, and would 
be delighted to welcome their visitors in spring. 
Christmas Day fell on a Sunday. Next night a dance 
was given. Songs were sung in English, French, and 
Gaelic, and the Babel of tongues which enlivened the 
motley scene may be imagined when it is stated that 
the company, numbering sixty, were made up of eight 
nationalities. On the 16th of January, a packet of 
letters and journals arrived from England, and eagerly 
was the news of the year discussed, as if its events had 
occurred the day before. 

The Dog Eibs had at length been induced to take 
themselves off to other quarters. It was high time, for 
provisions were running short. There was no more 
dried meat, and the fish was not only becoming scarce, 
but, being out of season, made some of the men ill. 
So Franklin was forced to send to Fort Norman for 
some of the stores meant for spring consumption. At 
the same time he wrote to York Factory for further 
supplies, and to request that provisions should be got 



Good Omens, 133 



ready for his home journey. But there were to be none 
of the horrible starvation experiences of 1821. In 
February, just as they were all getting tired of short 
allowance, some moose deer were killed, and though 
the party did not obtain all the meat, owing to the Dog- 
Rib hunters having eaten almost all they had them- 
selves killed, gorging so as to be unable to move, and 
becoming seriously ill, yet there was no more lack of 
food. Fish soon became plentiful, and the dogs grew 
fat. Indeed such hardship as there had been was not 
without its compensating circumstances, as it brought 
out the excellent disposition of the men. One of the 
seamen, Robert Spinks, said to Franklin, " Why, sir, 
we never minded the short allowance, but were fearful 
of having to use the pemmican intended for next 
summer. We only care about the next voyage, and 
shall all be glad when the spring comes that we may 
set off. Besides, at the worst time we could always 
spare a fish for each of our dogs." And this was not 
mere talk, for the three dogs he had had in charge were 
in better condition than any of the others. 

Franklin never lost an opportunity of doing good 
to the natives of the districts he visited. On this 
expedition he had made it a rule to make no presents 
of rum to the Indians. And now he seized an oppor- 
tunity of teaching the Dog Ribs a useful lesson. The 
Chipewyan hunters brought in a Dog Rib girl aged 
twelve, who had been left to starve to death by her 



134 Sir John Franklin. 

tribe, when they were only one day's march from the 
fishing station for which they were making, merely 
because she could not keep up with their pace. On 
the Dog Eibs coming to the house, Franklin, in their 
presence, rewarded the Chipewyans handsomely, and 
then lectured the inhuman wretches severely on their 
conduct. 

On March the 22nd, a startling rumour reached the 
Fort. At the Athabasca and Slave Lakes a rumour 
had been brought by Chipewyans that relics of white 
people and their recent footsteps in the snow had been 
found eastwards of the Coppermine Eiver on the sea- 
coast. Concluding that this was some hunting party 
sent by Captain Parry, Franklin's party were full of 
excitement and joy, and drank the healths of him and 
Captain Beechey that night in a bowl of punch. 

It was now drawing near the time when the start for 
the coast must be made, and the carpenters had com- 
pleted a new boat, on the model of the Lion, called the 
Reliance. It was 26 feet long by 5 feet 8 inches 
broad. Having few nails, they had cut up tools to make 
some. For tar they used strips of canvas soaked in 
caoutchouc varnish ; and instead of paint, they boiled 
resin from the pine-trees and mixed it with grease. 
The other boats were thoroughly repaired, and the 
following arrangements made. Beaulieu and four 
Canadians were to go to Dease Eiver, in Bear Lake, 
with a boat, and to wait there for Dr. Eichardson's 



Plan of Operations. 135 

return till the 20th of September. If he was not back 
then, they were to leave the boat, with plenty of pro- 
visions, and return to the Fort. Mr. Dease was told 
that Franklin's division might join the Blossom, and go 
home by Canton ; but, on the other hand, it might 
have to winter on the sea coast, and therefore he was 
to keep Fort Franklin in repair and well victualled all 
through the next year, 1827, and till the spring of 1828. 
Dr. Eichardson was told to wait in the Fort till 1827, 
and then, after seeing that Mr. Dease was carrying out 
these orders, was to go back to Eugland. On the 15th 
of June the boats were launched, and the men appointed 
to their posts. Fourteen, including Augustus, accom- 
panied Franklin and Back in the Lion and Reliance. 
Two of these were Canadians, who volunteered to a 
man when Franklin said he wanted two to make up 
his number. Ten, including Ooligbuck, went with 
Eichardson and Kendall in the Dolphin and Union. 
That night there was a merry dance, and on the longest 
day of 1826 the ice on the lake was broken by a strong 
westerly breeze, and the men embarked in the evening. 
On the morning of the 22nd the officers left the Fort, 
and one old man, Pascal Cote, the fisherman, was left 
in charge till Mr. Dease should return from Fort Norman. 
He set up a hearty, though solitary cheer as they went 
off, and the whole party, in full chorus, responded. 

Bear Lake Eiver was at first found too choked by 
drifting ice-masses to be safely navigated, but the party 



136 Sir John Franklin. 

reached Fort Norman on the Mackenzie River by the 
25th. There, to their sorrow, they learnt that the 
rumour of Parry being on the coast was false, and that 
the Indians had merely seen some fresh cut wood and 
a deer slain by an arrow, -which was probably the 
handiwork of Esquimaux. Parting from Mr. Dease 
and the Canadians on the 28th, they accomplished the 
312 miles from Fort Norman to Fort Good Hope by 
the 1st of July, and found a large party of Loucheux 
waiting for them. These men had quarrelled with the 
Esquimaux at the Red River lately, but had not come 
to blows. The chief said he had told these Esquimaux 
that Franklin was coming, but Franklin doubted his 
word. Moreover, he knew nothing of the channels of the 
Mackenzie, and of the tribes to the west of its mouth. 
So Franklin determined not to take the two engaged by 
Dease to act as guides, especially as he found they had 
reckoned on bringing their wives and families along 
with them. On hearing this the two were very violent, 
but after Franklin had in vain tried for a couple of 
hours to pacify them, he found that their disappoint- 
ment was assumed merely to get an additional present, 
which, when given, restored their good humour imme- 
diately. 

On the 3rd they reached the point where the river, 
broadening out, is divided into several channels, and on 
arriving at a branch flowing westwards towards the 
Rocky Mountains, Franklin determined that his part\ 



The Expedition Starts. 137 

should here strike away alone. Eichardson was directed 
to make for the eastern shore of the month of the 
Mackenzie, survey the coast to the Coppermine Eiver, 
and then travel overland to the north-east arm of Bear 
Lake, where he w T ould find Beaulieu. But if he found 
that there w T as no prospect of reaching the former point 
by the end of August, or the latter by the 20fch of 
September, he was not to persevere beyond the 15th or 
20th of August, but was to make his way back by the 
Mackenzie, or as he judged best. The point where 
these arrangements were made was called Point 
Separation ; and on the 4th of July, Franklin's party 
set off, at Eichardson's desire, first, amid the cheers of 
their friends. Augustus was very melancholy at 
parting from Ooligbuck, but soon recovered his spirits. 
Franklin could not help contrasting his former voyage 
in a frail bark canoe, scantily provisioned, with his 
present equipment — two excellent boats, manned by 
Englishmen, and food for three months' consumption. 
The crews of the two boats were as follows : — In the 
Lion with Franklin — William Duncan, Thos. Mathews, 
Gustavus Aird, George Wilson, Archibald Stewart, 
Neil Macdonald, and Augustus. On the Reliance with 
Back were Eobert Spinks, Eobert Hallom, Charles 
Mackenzie, Alexander Currie, Eobert Spence, Alexis 
Vivier, Francois Felix. 



CHAPTER X. 

franklin's second expedition (continued). 

Franklin's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esquimau* 
— Good Conduct of Augustus — Voyage to Return Reef — Fogs — 
Return to Fort Franklin. 

ON the 7th of July the boats gained the mouth of 
the Mackenzie, and Franklin discovered a number 
of Esquimaux on an island in it. He resolved on 
visiting them, accompanied only by Augustus, and told 
Back to keep the boats afloat, and the crews with their 
guns ready, but by no means to fire except as a last 
resort. The bay was about six miles w 7 ide, and the 
water shallow near the island, so that the boats touched 
the ground when a mile from the beach. 

Shouting, and making signs to the Esquimaux to 
come to the boats, Franklin made his men pull into 
deeper water. At first three and then scores of 
kaiyacks covered the intervening space. The three 
foremost received the present offered them, and on 
Augustus detailing the object of the visit, and the 
prospect of a profitable trade resulting from it, they 
repeated what he said to the rest, who raised a deafen- 



Encounter with Esquimaux. 139 

ing shout of applause. A brisk exchange of goods 
began. From two hundred and fifty to three hundred 
people thronged round the boats, all eager to share in 
the lucrative trade. Franklin amid the din could get 
no intelligence about the coast, and, finding their 
importunity troublesome, ordered the boats' heads to 
be put to seaward. The Esquimaux did not thwart 
him ; they even shoved the Lion off when it grounded 
in turning. Both boats, however, were fast aground, 
as the tide was ebbing, and the Esquimaux said the 
whole bay was equally flat. Just at this moment a 
kaiyack was upset by one of. the Lion's oars, and its 
owner plunged head foremost into the mud. Out of 
compassion he was taken into the Lion, and Augustus 
wrapped him in his own greatcoat. This fellow begged 
for everything he saw, and was very angry at being 
refused. He told his friends of all the bales and untold 
wealth he had seen in the Lion, and some of the 
younger ones tried to board the boat. Franklin's flag 
seemed the most coveted object, so he had it furled 
and stowed away, but finding it very hard to keep them 
off, he at last admitted two chiefs, on their promising 
to make the rest stand aloof. 

Profiting by this respite, the Reliance got into deeper 
water, but the Lion stuck fast, and Back fastened a 
tow-line to her. The hero of the ducking was now 
discovered with a pistol under his shirt. He had 
stolen it from Back, and jumped out with it and 



140 Sir John Franklin. 

Augustus' coat. By this time the water was only 
knee-deep, and the younger Esquimaux began slyly 
to steal everything within their reach. So Franklin 
told the two chiefs that he found himself much incom- 
moded by such a crowd, and that, if they would go 
away for the present, he would come back another 
time, and bring them a large present from the ship 
expected on the coast. They retired at once with cries 
of " Teyma." Franklin thought the danger was over, 
but was soon undeceived. They were only concerting 
a plan of attack, and at once began to haul the Reliance 
to the beach, smiling good-naturedly when Back 
remonstrated, and repeating the word " Teyma, teyma." 
To show they meant peace, they tossed their knives 
and arrows into the boat. The Lion tried to follow, but 
could not till the Esquimaux dragged her. Two of 
the strongest jumped in, and, seizing Franklin by the 
wrists, forced him to sit between them, and as he shook 
them off, a third stood by to catch his arm whenever 
he tried to lift his gun or dagger. All this time they 
kept patting his breast with their hands and pressing 
his against their breasts. As soon as the Reliance was 
ashore, a number drew their knives, stripped them- 
selves to the waist, and began a regular pillage of the 
boat, handing the articles to the women, who quickly 
conveyed them awa}^. Back's men resisted, but were 
overpowered by numbers. One cut the buttons from 
Vivier's coat, and others, nourishing knives, gazed 



A Critical Moment. 141 

gloatingly at the anchor-buttons on Back's waistcoat. 
Then one young chief seated himself on his knee, and 
drove the others off. 

It was now the Lion's turn to be attacked. Franklin, 
with Augustus, had gone to the help of the Reliance, 
and Augustus, with great boldness, rushed among the 
crowd, reproaching them with their treachery. But 
Franklin was recalled to the Lion by Duncan, for 
there the assailants were brandishing their knives 
furiously, and stealing everything movable, trying in 
particular to carry off the box of astronomical instru- 
ments, till Duncan fastened it to his leg by a cord. 
Hitherto both sides had remained comparatively cool, 
in spite of the heavy blows which the Englishmen 
dealt with the butts of their muskets. But matters 
now grew more serious. The savages, boarding the 
Lion, tried to wrest from the seamen their daggers and 
shot-belts. Back sent the friendly chief to the rescue, 
and he released Franklin just in time to enable him 
to prevent Wilson from shooting a man who had tried 
to stab him. But his own gun was immediately made 
the object of the struggle, and matters were growing 
serious, when suddenly all the assailants ran away, 
and hid themselves on the beach. 

This sudden metamorphosis was produced by the 
levelled muskets of the crew of the Reliance, which 
Back had managed to get afloat. Then the Lion got 
into deep water, and when the Esquimaux were again 



142 Sir John Franklin. 

preparing to approach in their kaiyacks, Franklin 
bade Augustus tell them he would shoot the first man 
who came within musket-range. All this time the 
pillagers had stolen little of value, except some kettles, 
blankets, shoes, sails, and a tent. They would have 
been given all else they had purloined if they had 
waited. Franklin, with his usual generosity, lavishes 
praise on the crews for their forbearance and coolness, 
which certainly they deserved ; but it is none the less 
evident that it was mainly owing to his own exhibition 
of those qualities that a catastrophe was avoided. 

The boats soon ran aground again, and were laid 
side by side. The Esquimaux proposed that Augustus 
should go to them and hold a conference. Franklin 
was at first unwilling, but, seeing the friendly chief 
among them, he consented. The "brave little fellow" 
was himself eager to go, and came back safely, after 
telling the Esquimaux that he could forgive their 
thefts from him, but not those from the white men, who 
were their benefactors, and had raised up his own 
people from indigence to comfort. Those white men 
would never visit them again unless they showed their 
sorrow by restoring the stolen goods. White men were 
not afraid of numbers ; it was merely out of pity that 
they had not used their guns, which would kill from a 
distance ; " and," concluded he, " I also have a gun, 
and if a white man had fallen, I would have been the 
first to have revenged his death." 



Bravery of Augustus. 143 

Such a speech at such a moment was, as Franklin 
says, " a remarkable instance of personal courage." But 
shouts of applause greeted the orator, and his audience 
pleaded that they were very sorry, and really could not 
help stealing such tempting novelties, and would never 
do so again. Being told to restore the large kettle 
and the tent as a proof of their sincerity, they did so, 
and invited Augustus to a dance, at which he was 
present for an hour. As night came on, the Esquimaux 
retired. At midnight the tide flowed, and at half-past 
one a.m. the boats floated, and were rowed six miles 
along the western shore, when a gale came on, so that 
they had to be unloaded, and all the party, except two 
left on guard, lay down to sleep, after twenty-four 
hours of incessant anxiety and toil. They slept till 
eleven, and were mending the holes made in their sails 
by the Esquimaux knives, when suddenly Back spied 
the whole fleet of kaiyacks approaching. Instantly 
they hauled the boats through the surf, loaded them, 
and had just got into deep water, when the foremost 
paddler came within hail, holding up a kettle, which* 
he said, he was anxious to restore. The answer was 
that the kaiyacks must keep their distance, and as they 
still pressed on, a ball was fired over the foremost of 
them. On this they desisted. 

Subsequently, Franklin discovered the Esquimaux 
intentions. Till the kaiyack had been upset, they had 
been friendly. But their cupidity, once aroused, had 



144 Sir John Franklin. 

excited them to pillage, and most of them wished to 
massacre the whole party. Some, however, demurred, 
and wished to spare Augustus, that he might be sent 
back as a sort of decoy with some specious tale to 
account for the loss of his companions, as otherwise no 
more white men would visit them. After the dance, 
the majority regretted being persuaded by their argu- 
ments, and it was determined to massacre all, without 
exceptioD, if a chance could be got. The kaiyack 
paddlers, with kettles displayed, were meant to get in 
liie way of the boats and occupy them till the rest 
could come up, and then the attack was to have been 
made. 

The boats now sailed W.N.W. along the coast, till 
stopped by ice adhering to the shore and stretching out 
to sea as far as could be seen. They had, in fact, been 
even then sailing up the only water-lane open, for 
everywhere else the sea was frozen as hard as in winter, 
and the ice-hummocks close to them were piled up 
thirty feet high. While thus jointly detained, the 
crews were roused from sleep by the watch reporting 
that Esquimaux were at hand. They were three in 
number, and being given presents, and harangued by 
Augustus, jumped for joy at what he told them. They 
were members of a party two miles away, and Augustus 
went to pay them a visit. In five hours he returned 
with twenty men and two women, who were not 
allowed to come nearer to the boats than a hundred 



More Esquimaux. 145 

and fifty yards — a stipulation which, always after this, 
Franklin insisted on being rigidly observed. They 
shook hands with Back and Franklin, who prepared to 
open the conference, when Augustus begged that he 
might put on his gayest dress and ornaments. They 
were lost in astonishment at his splendour, and could 
attend to nothing else for half-an-hour. But at last 
Franklin gleaned that, as soon as an off-shore breeze 
blew, the ice would leave a passage for the boats, which 
would be clear till the reappearance of the stars— that 
further west the ice often stuck to the land all the 
summer, and even if broken away, was driven back by 
the first sea-wind, and sledges and dogs were therefore 
necessary for coast travelling. Finding that these 
people usually frequented the Mackenzie in the summer, 
Franklin considered these to be exaggerated reports. 

With this Esquimaux tribe Franklin had much com- 
munication. They had knives, which they must have 
got from the Kussian traders or through the Loucheux, 
but other articles were nearly as eagerly demanded and 
freely supplied to them. Some they applied to strange 
uses, dancing about with awls stuck into their noses, 
and one with a large cod-fish hook dangling there. 
The women put the earrings and thimbles they were 
given on their dresses as ornaments. They were about 
four feet and a-half or four feet and three-quarters high; 
Back sketched some of them, to their vast delight. 
These Esquimaux expressed themselves very strongly 



146 Sir John Franklin. 

against the first Esquimaux. They were bad men, they 
said, who always quarrelled with or stole from them 
when they met. " If," said the speaker, " you are 
obliged to return by this way before these people 
remove, we, with a reinforcement of young men, will be 
in the vicinity, and will willingly accompany you to 
assist in repelling any attack." 

On the 11th, the ice having been broken by a 
westerly breeze, they embarked, but were forced to put 
back again. Heavy rain on the 12 th made the prospect 
more hopeful, and they launched out from land, hoping 
to strike across instead of following the circuit of the 
coast indentations. A gale rose, and drove such masses 
of ice on them, that for five hours they were in 
imminent danger, and with difficulty found a beach 
where they could encamp. 

On the 15th they were released from their prison, 
but could only make their way through the ice a little 
distance to the mouth of a river, to which Franklin 
gave the name of Babbage. Day after day was spent in 
this cheerless fashion. Now, they would be enveloped 
in fog, and, on its lifting, see a channel, which they 
entered, only to find themselves in shoal water, or 
ice-locked as before. Now, they would be forced to 
haul their boats across some projecting reef. Some- 
times a fine sheet of open water would be seen, and 
they would fancy the hardest of their toils was over. 
But it would turn out to be an ocular delusion, caused 



Dreary Work. 147 



by the fog hanging over the ice. Or it might he 
genuine water, with seals sporting in it; hut if so, it 
would soon be passed, and the old dreary outlook 
seaward would reappear — an expanse of ice, covered 
with blocks and hills of all shapes and sizes. Or a sea 
swell would rise, and they would find themselves amid 
fantastic masses of ice overhanging and threatening to 
crush the boats as they were pulled through the 
waterways amid the chaos. Perhaps on turning some 
corner they came on a fresh batch of Esquimaux, an 
excitement which, however welcome at first, soon palled, 
as scant information could be obtained from them about 
the western coast, and these grown-up children had to 
be watched incessantly lest their pilfering instincts 
should lead to mischief. The chase gave the men 
occasionally a pleasant spell on shore, but few reindeer 
were shot. And the land had discomforts of its own, 
for there the excursionists were assailed by myriads of 
mosquitoes, or sank ankle-deep in the swampy ground. 
Nor dare they be absent from the boats for any time, 
lest the ice in its fickle movements should open while 
they were away. The anxiety of their situation left 
them little inclination to read, and still less to devise 
amusements. In this dull and monotonous way they 
crept gradually westwards till they reached the mouth 
of the river, which was called the Clarence— the most 
westerly river in the British dominions on this coast. 
Here they set up a pile of drift wood, under which they 



148 Sir John Franklin, 

deposited a tin box, containing a royal silver medal and 
an account of their voyage. Then the Union Jack was 
hoisted and three cheers given. On the 30th the sun, 
which had only fitfully shone through the prevailing 
gloom, just revealing the picturesqueness of the sad 
spectral shapes which had before loomed through the 
mist, was visible as it set at eleven, warning them that 
the time for their operations was fast slipping away, 
though so little had been done. 

About the beginning of August a violent gale tem- 
porarily cleared away the fog and broke up the ice, 
which drifted fast to the west, and on the 3rd they lost 
sight of Mount Oonybeare for the first time since the 
9th of July. Very considerable progress was made in 
the next forty-eight hours, and they met several parties 
of Esquimaux, from whom they learnt that some of 
their nation, inhabitants of the westward coast, were 
not far ahead. But on the 5th they were brought to a 
standstill by an unbroken line of ice from the shore. 
No water was to be seen in the dense pack seawards ; 
they had but little fuel, and the water froze in the 
kettle at night. They were now to the north of Flax- 
man Island, and on the 7th, by going to the south of it, 
were enabled to advance. The Lion was very leaky, 
though they did not stop while they could keep her free 
by baling. The glare of the sun made them mistake 
the surf breaking on a reef for a ripple of the tide, and, 
running aground, they shipped much water. A strong 



Perpettial Fog. 149 



gale was now blowing, and they had some difficulty in 
landing, having to carry the cargo two hundred yards 
through shoal water, in order to lighten the boats. By 
midnight the leaks had been made good, but a very 
thick fog, with rough weather, prevented movement. 
Sorrowfully they noted the havoc wrought by the 
weather on the flowers which were blooming when they 
first reached the coast, but were now withered, and 
they longed for a decked ship, in which, with provisions 
secure from the waves, and able to sleep in shelter, 
they might sail away, regardless of the gale, straight 
for Icy Cape. 

The most depressing circumstance of this voyage 
must have been the incessant fog. Foggy Island was 
the name they gave the place of their present encamp- 
ment. In the murky atmosphere they sometimes 
sallied out to shoot deer, which took wing as they 
approached, and turned out to be cranes or geese. 
Catching a glimpse of a point along the coast in 
advance, they steered for it by compass through the 
fog. But they could find no camping-ground, and 
were forced to return again to the hateful island, which 
the men began to think enchanted. Cheery though 
they were, they were leading a hard life. They had 
been since the 8th at this island. On the 11th they 
were hauling the boats through mud for more than 
two hours, when the temperature of the air was 40°, 
aud of the water 41°. At night their legs were much 



150 Sir John Franklin. 

swollen and inflamed. Franklin became alarmed lest 
they should be knocked up by such exposure, and 
resolved to wait for clearer w T eather. On a shoal coast, 
with drifting ice at sea which a gale may drive shpre- 
wards, fog is the most dangerous of enemies. This 
year it seemed to haunt the expedition as if it were 
under a spell. Three times only in 1821 had Franklin 
been detained by fog in his voyage from the Copper- 
mine River. Now, day after day, the same veil of 
ghostly vapour hid everything distant more than four 
or five miles. The cause of this difference Franklin 
attributes to the greater accumulations of ice on this 
coast, and the exhalations from it and from the swamps 
on shore, whereas east of the Coppermine River the 
coast is more high and dry. 

The tents had now become so saturated by the fog as 
to be very comfortless, and it was necessary to be 
economical with the fuel, so the crew had to sit with 
their feet in blankets in order to keep them warm. 
The nights, too, were lengthening. Still they persevered, 
and on the 16th sailed at last in sunshine from what 
Franklin, with one of the only two touches of spleen 
to which he ever gives vent in either of his narratives, 
calls " this detestable island," and rounded the reef 
which, having defied all their efforts so long, was called 
Point Anxiety. But their pitiless enemy closed' in on 
them again, and with a rising breeze the ice-drifts 
hemmed them in, so that in searching for a landing- 



Return necessary. 151 

place they fell among gravelly reefs. On one of these 
they were forced to encamp, though there was no 
water, and not more than one fire's fuel, and space 
above water only five hundred yards in circumference. 

The time was now come when it was necessary to 
consider whether a further advance was prudent or 
possible. The party was just half-way from the Mac- 
kenzie to Icy Cape. About Icy Cape it was known 
from Captain Cook's voyages that the coast was of a 
character similar to this. A whole month had been 
taken up in exploring ten degrees of longitude. Ten 
degrees still remained to be explored. The summer 
was at an end. The experience of 1821 and the signs 
of the season now pointed to a break-up of the weather 
as imminent. The cold was increasing. Ice formed at 
night. By day the sun had less power. The geese 
were flying westward. Shipwreck in the summer had 
been considered probable enough, and only one of the 
hardships which it was their duty to encounter. Then 
they would only have had a toilsome march before them. 
But now, when so far from home, and when the deer 
were on the point of leaving the coast, it would have 
been fatal. Moreover, there was the clause in Frank- 
lin's instructions to be remembered, which ordered him 
to turn back, if on the 15th or 20 th of August he had 
no reasonable hopes of reaching Kotzebue's Inlet that 
season. 

So, in spite of the honourable ardour of the sailors, 



152 Sir John Franklin. 

who were still eager to advance, Franklin reluctantly 
recognised the necessity of returning. He found 
subsequently, from Captain Beechey's experience, that 
he had been right. A boat sent by him eastwards had 
actually arrived at a point only 160 miles distant; and 
could Franklin have known this, no difficulty or danger 
would have deterred him from attempting to reach her. 
But that very boat had found the ice and the coast just 
as Franklin found them, and it was not till it had 
been beset for several days, and had narrowly escaped 
shipwreck, that it rejoined the Blossom. Therefore, 
having by this time traced the coast westward from the 
Mackenzie three hundred and seventy-four miles, and 
having named the furthest point they could see after 
Captain Beechey, Franklin began his homeward journey, 
at the spot which he designated as Eeturn Eeef, on the 
18th of August. In the afternoon they were again at 
Foggy Island, to which " ill-omened " place a good fire 
and a warm meal did not reconcile them, so that they 
hastened to get away as soon as they had deposited 
coins and letters under some timber with a flag flying 
on it, in the hopes that some Esquimaux might find 
them and pass them on to the fur traders, and that so 
Government might have news of them if any accident 
befel the party. 

As they proceeded, they saw that before long the 
new ice would unite the pack ice to the shore. A gale, 
however, sent them along at a great speed, to the 



Danger ahead. 153 



astonishment of the friendly Esquimaux whom they 
had seen during their former passage. But having to 
pass through a channel only two hundred yards wide in 
a dense fosr. while the air resounded with the voices of 
people whom they could not see, they were in much 
anxiety as well as peril, and did not discover Herschel 
Island, the harbourage for which they were making, till 
they were only forty yards from shore. The next day 
also it blew a gale. The boats, racing along under close- 
reefed sails, proved themselves very buoyant, but such a 
sea ran that they were in imminent danger of foundering. 
It was therefore necessary to steer them ashore at all 
hazards, though, as there were but few landing-places, 
it seemed likely that they would be staved in. As it 
was,, the surf filled them, but no material damage was 
done, and, feeling they had had a great deliverance, the 
crews thankfully reached the land. 

The Esquimaux had witnessed the landing with the 
utmost amazement, and now most good-naturedly gave 
help, sewing sealskin soles over the men's moccasins, 
to make them fit for tracking. From them too it was 
that Franklin learnt what the designs of the Mackenzie 
Esquimaux had been. The latter, he was told by 
another party further on, had removed eastwards, and 
if any had stayed behind, could be avoided by another 
channel being taken. On the 29th more Esquimaux 
were met, who communicated the alarming intelligence 
that an attempt had been made to drag Richardson's 



154 Sir John Franklin. 

boats on shore, so that, as the natives collect in numbers 
at the mouth of the river when the summer ends, he 
would, if he returned the same way, be exposed to 
extreme danger. Anxiety for their friends, however, 
soon gave place to the same fears for their own safety. 
Two young Esquimaux came running at full speed to 
say that Indians had come down from the mountains, 
with the express purpose of assaulting the boats and 
massacring all in them. An old man to whom Franklin 
had given a knife had, out of gratitude, sent them to 
warn him. " These white men," he said, " have been 
kind to us, and they are few in number, why should we 
suffer them to be killed ? You are active young men ; 
run and tell them to depart instantly." The young 
men said the English had guns, and could defend them- 
selves. " True," said this sagacious old Esquimaux, 
" against a small force, but not against so large a body 
of Indians as this, who are likewise armed with guns, 
and who will crawl under cover of the drift timber, so 
as to surround them before they are aware." The 
messengers urged Franklin to embark at once, for the 
Indians were preparing for the onset. They said 
they were chiefly anxious to save Augustus, who had 
inspired them all, it seems, with strong affection, and 
they gave minute directions as to the course to be 
steered, advising that at night the encampment should 
always be made on an island out of gunshot from the 
shore. The Indians, it appeared, hearing of the arrival 



Fort Franklin again. 155 

of the Englishmen, and fearing they would spoil their 
own trade with the Esquimaux, had come down to lie 
in wait for their return. Some were to have come and 
offered assistance in hauling the boats, which they were 
to have staved in, and then the assault was to have 
been made. 

It was an anxious moment, for one of the crew, 
Eobert Spinks, .was absent hunting. Directly he 
returned they set off, after liberally rewarding the kind 
Esquimaux, and nothing more of note happened to them, 
till a week later, on the 7th September, they once more 
arrived at Fort Good Hope. On the 21st they reached 
Fort Franklin, and to their extreme joy found Eichard- 
son and his party there alive and well. In the voyage 
thus happily concluded the party had travelled 2,048 
statute miles, 610 of which were through previously 
undiscovered parts. If it lacks the thrilling interest of 
Franklin's first expedition, it reflected on all concerned 
in it the highest honour. Of perils in the sea, of perils 
by robbers, of perils by the heathen, of weariness and 
painfulness, of watchings often, there had been enough 
to satisfy the most exacting reader of adventures in the 
northern seas. But the admirable foresight shown by 
the leader in planning the voyage, and his wisdom in 
its execution, had happily rendered all those dangers 
less romantically impressive than they would have been 
if some of the crew had been butchered in bloody 
combat with the Esquimaux, or if starvation had carried 



156 Sir John Franklin. 

off others in consequence of a foolhardy persistence in 
an impossible advance. Not really prosaic, though so 
substantial as to seem so, was the success of the expe- 
dition. For the second time Franklin had failed in 
accomplishing his full object ; but short of that every- 
thing had gone well, and it may be said that, throughout 
the journey, the men on whom he so generously and 
justly lavishes his warmest praise were not more worthy 
of their commander than the commander showed him- 
self worthy of the men. 



CHAPTER XL 

franklin's second expedition (continued). 

Richardson's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esquimaux 
— Richardson's opinion of Franklin — He reaches the Coppermine 
River and Fort Franklin — Second Winter at Fort Franklin — Dog 
Rib Traditions — Return to England. 

DR RICHARDSON and his party waited till the 
cheers of their friends died away round a projecting 
point, and then themselves embarked on their voyage. 
In the Dolphin were himself, Thomas Gillet, John 
M'Lellan, Shadrack Tj^soe, Thomas Fuller, and Oolig- 
buck ; in the Union, Mr. , Kendall, John M'Leary, 
George Munroe, William Money, John M'DufTey, and 
George Harkness. 

The direct distance from the Mackenzie to the 
Coppermine Eiver was, they knew, less than five 
hundred miles, and having provisions for upwards of 
eighty days, they were full of confidence and enthusiasm. 
Taking the channel first explored by Mackenzie, and 
more carefully surveyed by Franklin in the preceding 
autumn, they went along it about ten miles, and then 
struck a branch flowing eastwards through flat and 



158 Sir John Franklin. 

uninterestiDg country, in which, 'however, flocks of sand 
martins made war on the mosquitoes, and enlivened the 
air with their twittering. On the first day they 
advanced forty-two miles. At night the arms were 
examined, and a watch was set — a practice which was 
kept up for the rest of the voyage. Making forty-four 
miles next day, they bivouacked at an Esquimaux 
encampment, and left some presents for its frequenters, 
with hieroglyphics written by Mr. Kendall, explaining 
the peaceable intentions of their visit. 

On the 7th of July they were off Richard's Island 
(so they named it), which stretches northwards to 
the very mouth of the river. Here they saw two 
women on the shore, who, after gazing at them 
in amazement for a few minutes, ran into the tents. 
Out rushed the men, almost naked, making furious 
gestures of fright and rage. Ooligbuck and Richard- 
son landed with some small articles, and the word 
" noowcerlook " — i.e., trade — acted like magic. An 
old woman fetched some fish, and soon a crowd 
came to barter, quickly becoming importunate and 
threatening in their looks and gestures. Ooligbuck said 
they were very bad people, and, taking Richardson on 
his back, carried him on board. One ugly fellow, with 
a brass thimble inserted in his under lip, seized the tea- 
kettle, and tried to hide it, but was forced to give it up. 
When the boats left the shore, the Esquimaux in their 
kaiyacks followed, and an amicable exchange of goods 



Esquimaux encountered. 159 

was kept up on the way. They showed much shrewd- 
ness in the bargains they made, being careful not to 
glut the market by displaying too much of their stock- 
in-trade. When Ooligbuck lit his pipe they called out, 
" Ookah, ookah " (fire, fire), and asked to be told what 
he was doing. They begged Eichardson to put away 
an Esquimaux vocabulary when Ooligbuck told them 
that it spoke to him ; and afterwards the book could not 
be found, so probably they purloined it. Seeing 
Eichardson's pocket telescope, they understood its use 
at once, calling it " Eeteeyawgah " (far eyes), the name 
which they give to the eye-shades which they use. 
They were quite unable to pronounce the word 
"Doctor," and so spoke of Eichardson only as 
" Eheumattak " (Chief). But they could pronounce 
Tysoe's name easily, and called Gillet, " Hillet." The 
women were not bad-looking, and evidently were aware 
of the fact. 

Several other encampments were passed the same 
morning, and the new-comers, running their kaiyacks 
alongside, seized the gunwale of the boat, and tried 
to steal anything within their reach. The crews were 
compelled to keep constantly at their oars, as the 
moment they ceased rowing, the pilfering was carried 
on in the adroitest fashion. But with perfect good 
humour they restored every stolen article as soon as it 
was demanded back, laughing heartily at their own 
discomfiture. It was clear they were friendly, as they 



160 Sir John Franklin.. 

answered questions readily, pointed out the deepest 
channels, invited the crews ashore and to their tents, 
offering to provide them with wives, among other 
luxuries, if they would pay them a visit. But, in 
accordance with Franklin's experience, as their cupidity 
became inflamed their conduct grew more equivocal. 
They led the way into a shallow channel, and one 
of them made an attempt to board the Dolphin by 
force. Eichardson tried the expedient of 'buying up 
their bows, to disarm them, and found them very 
superior to the Indian bows. They were made of 
spruce fir, strengthened by cords of reindeer skin, and 
really formidable weapons. Towards evening the boats, 
following the course taken by the savages, grounded in 
shoal water, and in attempting another the Union ran 
on a bank. The Esquimaux, who had been growing 
more and more urgent in their invitations to the crews 
to land, tried to drag the boats ashore, and Kendall 
called out that he should be obliged to fire, as he saw 
men coming with knives in their .hands to help their 
companions. Eichardson gave him liberty to do so, 
but at the sight of the firearms the savages all fled. 
Till the muskets were produced, they probably were 
doubtful as to the sex of their visitors. Among them- 
selves only crews of women row in large boats, and they 
must have thought the six-oared boats to be a species 
of "oomiak." They asked Ooligbuck, too, if all the 
white women had beards. 



A Welcome Breeze. 161 

The place where these events occurred was named 
Point Encounter, and perhaps — as the natives were 
seen consulting together — mischief might even yet 
have happened, if a fresh breeze had not enabled the 
sails to be set, and the weary men to get some rest 
after fourteen hours' incessant rowing. Eichardson 
called out to the kaiyacks which followed him that he 
would trade no more. Soon the last of them dropped 
behind, calling out, " Teymak peechawootoo" — " Friend- 
ship is good." These people informed Eichardson that 
the Coppermine Esquimaux were bad people. White 
people they called " Kabloonacht." Ooligbuck was of 
little service as an interpreter, for he spoke no English, 
but his presence showed that the white people were on 
good terms with the Esquimaux, and personally he 
was devoted to his officers, and laboured cheerfully at 
the oar. 

Making for a round islet in order to encamp, the 
boats were nearly driven on shoals by a violent wind, 
and, though this danger was avoided, much discomfort 
was endured. Hardly had the weary men become 
warm, after lying down in wet clothes, when a gust 
of wind blew the Union from her moorings towards 
a surf-beaten lee shore. She was saved with difficulty, 
and once more they lay down to rest. Then another 
gust came, tore up the tent-pegs, and brought down on 
them the tent, saturated with rain. There was nothing 
for it but to get up, light a fire, and dry themselves as 



162 Sir John Franklin. 

best they might, Kendall's mishaps, however, were 
not over. Stumbling against a tent-pole, he drove a 
small two-edged knife, which he wore round his neck, 
into his ribs, just over the heart. Luckily it stuck in 
the bone. 

That evening, as they lay at anchor in the cave 
where they had taken refuge, Kichardson saw what he 
supposed to be kaiyacks passing across the mouth. 
But it turned out that the objects were drift-wood 
stumps, magnified by the haze. Quitting the cave 
in the evening, they saw the ice-blink early on the 
morning of the 9th, and the ice coming down drove 
them to the shore, where they saw many Esquimaux 
huts. The rows of drift-trees, planted roots uppermost 
in the sand, often seemed like human beings, and some- 
times like the spires of a town. They learnt to make 
for these objects whenever they wished to land, as the 
Esquimaux had placed thern where the shore could be 
approached most safely. On the 10th the water became 
brackish, white whales were seen in the offing, and they 
saw they had reached the mouth of the river and the 
sea. A glass of grog, kept for this occasion, was given 
to each of the men. 

On the 11th and 12th they were constrained to 
inaction by the weather. They found some amusement 
ia watching the sagacity of two black foxes, which, 
having stolen some scraps of meat, buried them in the- 
sand, putting each bit in a separate hole, and the 



More Esquimaux, 163 

largest bits in the holes farthest from the sea. They 
also met some more Esquimaux, who welcomed them, 
and invited them to their tents. Declining this, they 
rowed along the coast till stopped by the rain, and 
when they again set out were beset by a thick fog, 
amid which they could hear the sound of breakers, 
while seeing nothing. They did not know how far 
from the beach they were, but, coming on a long line of 
seaweed, and guessing that it came from the mouth of 
a river, they groped their way into an inlet, where they 
stayed for the night. Making, next day, thirty and 
a-half miles, they saw to their delight, on the 16th, 
that the coast which had hitherto inclined northward 
trended to the south-east. But, after pulling to a point 
across an inlet, they found it to be part of an island, 
and that the coast trended north-north-west seven or 
eight miles further on. To the south-west a large 
sheet of open water was seen, which they concluded 
was Esquimaux Lake. 

On the 17th they rounded Cape Maitland, and, 
crossing Harrowby Bay on the 18th, came upon some 
Esquimaux. The men brandished their knives, and 
forbade thern to land. To all protestations of friend- 
ship they replied by hideous grimaces and contortions, 
standing on one leg, with the other thrown up to their 
heads. "Noowserlawgo" (I wish to barter) quieted 
them, and the women were made supremely happy by 
some trifling presents, dancing in their boats with such 



164 Sir John Franklin. 

ecstasy as almost to upset them. One old woman, 
catching a bundle of beads, hugged it with rapture to 
her breast ; another, who had missed the treasure, was 
the picture of despair. Being told that the beads were 
for all, they divided them at once and sang a pleasant 
song of gratitude. In coaxing fashion they drew their 
naked children out of their boots, where they carry 
them, and begged for more beads. When Ooligbuck — 
first warning theni of what he was going to do — fired 
his gun, the ice sent back an echo, and they thought 
the ball had struck the shore a mile away. Eichardson 
learnt from them that, between some land northwards 
and the main land, there was a passage leading to the 
sea. He concluded, from their accounts and his own 
observations, that the archipelago through which he had 
been threading his way thus far had been raised by the 
Mackenzie Eiver, and that, owing to the islands acting 
as a barrier between the sea and the river, the waters 
of the latter, overflowing the low land along the coast, 
had formed the great Esquimaux Lake, which the 
natives described as extending 140 miles from north to 
south, and 150 from east to west. 

After Cape Bathurst had been doubled, the coast 
seemed to trend straight for the Coppermine Eiver. In 
stormy weather, and harassed much by fogs, they 
sailed past some cliffs of bituminous shale, which was 
on fire, and, when they had got about half-way to 
the Coppermine Eiver, were disappointed to find 



Richardson on Franklin. 1C5 

another cape confronting them. Steering northwards, 
therefore, they were for three days in a bay, to which 
Richardson gave the name of Franklin. These are the 
comments he makes on the occasion : — " It would not 
be proper, nor is it my intention, to descant on the 
professional merits of my superior officer; but after 
having served under Captain Franklin, for nearly seven 
years, in two successive voyages of discovery, I may be 
allowed to say that, however high his brother officers 
may rate his courage and talents, either in the ordinary 
line of his professional duty or in the field of discovery, 
the hold he acquires upon the affections of those under 
his command, by a continued series of the most con- 
ciliating attentions to their feelings and a uniform and 
unremitting regard to their best interests, is most con- 
spicuous. I feel that the sentiments of my friends and 
companions, Captain Back and Lieutenant Kendall, are 
in unison with my own, when I affirm that gratitude 
and attachment to our late commanding officer will 
animate our breasts to the latest period of our lives." 

Tiie cape, when reached, was named after Parry, and 
a letter for him was deposited under a cairn of stones. 
For days afterwards the party struggled through ice, 
which, though it was never seen by them so closely 
packed as to be impenetrable to a ship under full sail, 
was yet daugerous for boats like theirs, as at one time 
it would threaten to crush them, and at another to 
upset them when it "calfed," that is to say, when it 



166 Sir John Franklin. 

broke off at the base of a big piece and suddenly came 
up above the surface. Tiresome progress it must have 
been to press through such obstacles, never knowing 
but that the coast-line might prove to be a bay, and 
that the Coppermine Eiver might at any time be as far 
off, as the crow flies, as it had been days before. Such 
a sensation they had on the 4th of August, when, 
sighting land to the north, they at first thought it to be 
part of the continent But they were rejoiced to find 
a strait between it and the mainland, which they 
christened Dolphin and Union Strait. The northward 
land they saw was named Wollaston Land; and why 
this — which has since turned out to be an island — 
should now be known by other names it is hard to say. 
On modern maps it is called Prince Albert Land and 
Victoria Land, but surely the name given by the first 
explorers should have been respected. 

In high spirits at having passed through this strait, 
and with a fair wind under which the boats gaily 
bowled along, they doubled Cape Bexley, whence the 
coast trended steadily south-east. On the 6th the 
Dolphin was nipped between a floe and some ground 
.ice, and one of her timbers was broken. On the 7th 
they entered Coronation Gulf, thus connecting the dis- 
coveries of their voyage with those of Franklin in 1821. 
They could not, however, claim the Government reward 
of £5,000, because, though it was offered for the dis- 
covery of the space covered by them, yet the course 



The Coppermine River. 167 

prescribed was from west to east, and for ships, not 
boats. On the 8th a bold cape was reached, which 
Richardson named after Kendall, and from its summit 
be had the satisfaction of pointing out to that officer 
the gap in the hills at Bloody Fall through which the 
Coppermine River flows. For fear of raising hopes 
which might be long deferred, he had till then given 
the men no intimation that they had so nearly reached 
the end of their voyage. Surprise of course increased 
their delight, and with glad and thankful hearts, under 
sails set to a fine breeze, and with the oars at work also, 
they steered for the mouth of the river, passing a bay 
which was named after the gallant Back. Then the 
river's mouth was reached, and they encamped not a 
hundred yards from where Franklin had encamped in 
1821. The distance traversed from Point Separation, 
where they had parted from Franklin, to this spot, was 
902 statute miles. 

On the 9th of August, the river was ascended about 
eleven miles to Bloody Fall. There the trusty boats 
were abandoned, and the party headed for Bear Lake, 
the instruments, food, and specimens being divided 
among them at the rate of seventy-two pounds per 
man. They also carried with them the little Walnut 
Shell ; but as it proved unfit for towing purposes, and 
there were no rivers which could not be forded between 
them and Bear Lake, it also was abandoned on the 
10th. As the men got used to marching, and their 



168 Sir John Franklin. 

loads were lessened by their own appetites, they 
advanced more rapidly, killing on their way with 
stones some partridges as tame apparently as English 
pheasants. On the loth they met Indians, who at first 
showed suspicion, but on recognising Richardson's 
dress, which he had worn during his voyage on Bear 
Lake the preceding autumn, they welcomed him with 
shouts of joy. It seemed they had been for some 
time hunting in the neighbourhood, in view of this 
meeting. They conducted the party to a better route 
for walking, and on the 18th a bay of the Great Bear 
Lake was reached, where they breakfasted, and found 
that they had provisions for two days' consumption left. 
The question now arose, where was Beaulieu ? He had 
been ordered to leave Fort Franklin on the 6th of 
August, and should have been in waiting instead of 
waited for. Day after day passed, and still he did not 
come, and, fearing some accident must have happened, 
Richardson began to think they would be forced to go 
on foot to the Fort round the lake, that is to say, over 
300 miles. It would take at least three weeks, and the 
men's shoes were worn out, their clothes were too thin 
for the frosty nights of September, and few deer could 
be found on the way. The prospect was alarming, but 
he had made up his mind to start, when on the 24th 
the truant at last appeared, pleading stress of weather 
as the cause of his delay. On the 1st of September 
the party regained Fort Franklin, after a journey by 



Winter Occupations. 109 

water and land of 1,980 statute miles, during which not 
a murmur had been heard from one of its members, 
amid many toils and hardships. 

How to spend the winter was now the only question 
which Franklin had to consider, for the main objects of 
the expedition had been attained. Unfortunately, the 
chances of famine were by no means remote. The lazy 
Fort hunters and Dog Bibs had stored but little meat, 
alleging that they were afraid of encountering the 
Gopper Indians in the woods. Beaulieu, too, the best 
hunter, procured his discharge, and though he took away 
with him seventeen idle followers, which was a great 
relief to the stores, his loss would have been grievously 
felt at a pinch. Every effort was made to collect 
fish; but when it became out of season, it disagreed 
with some of the men so much as to produce serious 
debility. The poor dogs also necessarily went on short 
commons, and would be unable to draw the sledges in 
spring until their strength was recruited. The outlook 
was not therefore very bright. But the arrival of a 
large packet of letters from England, containing the 
news of Back's promotion to the rank of Commander, 
cheered everyone ; and though the cold at times was so 
severe that on one occasion Kendall froze some mercury 
in a bullet-mould, and at six paces penetrated a door 
with it an eighth of an inch, yet they got through the 
dark months without any severe privations. The same 
efforts as before were made by the officers to instruct 



170 Sir John Franklin. 

and amuse the men, who responded as heartily to 
them. Back came out in a new character, writ- 
ing a comic piece, which was acted by pasteboard 
marionettes, and had a successful run of three nights. 
The reindeer arrived in February, and after that there 
was no lack of meat. 

Franklin, meanwhile, had determined to set out as 
soon as possible for England, going by the ice to Fort 
Chipewyan, and making arrangements in advance for 
the provisioning of the main body on their homeward 
journey. Hearing the ice was in bad condition, he 
changed his route, and set out for Fort Simpson, by 
way of the woods, on the 20th of February, 1827. 
Augustus was sent ahead, and, as the dogs were too 
weak for service, two Indians were engaged as porters. 
Back was left behind, with orders to proceed to York 
Factory as soon as the ice broke, and thence with his 
countrymen by the Hudson's Bay ship to England, 
sending the Canadians to Montreal, and Augustus and 
Ooligbuck to Fort Churchill. 

Three hearty cheers from his friends as he left the 
Fort renewed Franklin's "regret at leaving a society 
whose members had endeared themselves to him by 
unremitting attention to their duties and the greatest 
personal kindness." On the second day the two 
Indians deserted with their load of pemmican, so men 
and dogs had to be put on short allowance. On the 
Bth of March they reached Fort Simpson, after 



Indian Instinct, 171 

travelling 220 miles. The Indian, their guide, had 
never been there before, but would have come straight 
to the Fort if he had followed his own instinct, instead 
of an Indian track which they came across by the 
way. Once, many years before the Fort was built, he 
had been in that district, and had noticed a mountain 
in the vicinity, but had nothing else to steer by. Such 
extraordinary aptitude for storing up in the mind 
points of topography, which necessity must have made 
a second nature, may perhaps throw some light on 
what has often been the subject of controversy, namely, 
how pigeons find their way home when sent back at a 
distance from it. 

On the 21st, Little Lake was reached, and two Cana- 
dians were met, with a packet of letters for Fort Franklin. 
In spite of the piercing cold, Franklin spent the night 
most agreeably in scanning, before forwarding, the 
contents. On the 26th he reached Fort Resolution, 
where he was again received most hospitably by Mr. 
Mc Vicar, who had so kindly attended to the survivors 
of his first expedition after their sufferings. Richardson 
had left this place in December, having gone to join 
the naturalist, Drummond, on the Saskatchawan. After 
a stay of eight days, Franklin set out for Fort Chipewyan, 
which he reached on the 12th of April, and was rejoiced 
to find that many changes for the better had taken place 
in the habits of the Indians, and their relations with the 
Company. His naturally humane disposition had been 



172 Sir John Franklin. 

specially interested in these poor people by his constant 
contact with them during the greater part of seven 
years. The Company no longer imported spirits into 
this department, did not encourage loitering round the 
Fort, but stimulated activity in hunting by distribution 
of clothes, and had ordered the ground in the imme- 
diate vicinity of their establishment to be cultivated 
wherever it was practicable. 

Franklin relates some curious facts about the Dog 
Eib traditions and history. The first man was, accord- 
ing to them, called Chapewee. He created children, 
and gave to them two kinds of fruit, the black and the 
white, of which they were only to eat the white. 
Then he went away to bring the sun to the world, and 
while he was gone they obeyed him, and ate only the 
white. But when he went to fetch the moon, they had 
no white fruit left, and ate the black. For this, 
Chapewee told them the earth should produce only 
bad fruits. He lived so long that his throat was 
worn out, and, though he was sick of life, could not 
die, till one of his people drove a beaver's tooth into his 
head. This same, or another Chapewee, lived on a 
strait between two seas. He caught so many fish at the 
weir he had built, that the strait was choked up, and 
the earth was flooded. He took all his family with him 
in a canoe, with all manner of birds and beasts. As the 
waters did not sink, he said, " We cannot always live 
thus," and he sent a beaver to search for the earth. 



Indian Traditions. 173 

The beaver was drowned, so he sent a musk rat next, 
which, after a long time, brought back a little earth in 
its paws. The rat he warmed in his bosom till it 
revived. The earth he moulded with his fingers and 
laid on the water, where it swelled to an island. He 
put a wolf on it first, but its weight nearly made the 
island topple over, so he told the wolf to walk round 
and round the earth for a year, by the end of which 
time the land supported all the occupants of the canoe. 
He planted a fir-tree, which grew up to the skies, whither 
Chape wee also climbed in chasing a squirrel. He 
came on a large plain, in which he set a snare for 
the squirrel, made of his sister's hair. At noon the sun 
was caught in the snare, and darkness came over the 
earth. Chapewee's family complained of this, and said 
he must have committed some sin when he was up in 
the sky. He confessed that he had, but unintention- 
ally, and sent animal after animal to cut the snare, 
but each was burnt up by the heat of the sun, till a 
mole, by burrowing under the road in the sky, reached 
the snare and released the sun. It lost its eyes, how- 
ever, directly it looked up, and its nose and teeth have 
ever since then been brown. 

Chapewee's descendants quarrelled, and a -dispersion 
of mankind took place. One Indian took up his station 
at a lake, having with him a bitch big with young. 
When the pups were born, he tied them up before 
he went out fishing. On returning, he several times 



174 Sir John Franklin. 

heard the voices of children in his hut, but, on entering, 
only found the puppies. He determined to watch, 
and one day concealed himself instead of going 
fishing. The moment he heard the voices, he 
rushed in, and found children playing, with the puppy- 
skins lying by them. He threw the skins into the 
fire, and those children were the ancestors of the Dcg 
Eibs. 

So much for their traditions, which, it will be seen, 
bear a curious analogy to those of other nations. 
Lately there had been a strange belief among the 
Northern tribes that a great change was about to take 
place in their condition — a belief originating with a 
sort of Indian Joan of Arc. This woman — the wife of 
one of the North-West Company's Canadian servants — 
resolved to become a warrior. Procuring a gun, a bow 
and arrows, and a horse, she displayed such bravery 
that many young men followed her, and she became the 
chief leader of the tribe, and was styled the " Manlike 
Woman." Her exploits caused her to be credited 
with supernatural power, and she spread the above- 
mentioned prediction, which, as often happens in such 
cases, had a tendency to fulfil itself. This heroine, 
among other feats, undertook to convey a packet from 
one to another of the Company's posts, through a tract 
of country not traversed by the traders, and infested 
by hostile tribes. Though wounded, she carried the 
packet, and brought back the answer. Subsequently 



Good-bye to Augustus. 175 

she was mortally wounded in a war-raid, and her story 
fell into discredit. 

It was in collecting these curious details of savage 
life that Franklin spent part of the seven weeks he 
stayed at Fort Chipewyan. Augustus, in order to see 
Dr. Eichardson, again set out on the 26th of May. 
Franklin followed on the 31st, and caught up Eichard- 
son at Cumberland House on the 18fch of June, after a 
separation of eleven months. By him he was told 
of the zeal shown by Drummond, the assistant 
naturalist to the expedition, who, in collecting 
specimens of natural history in the Eocky Moun- 
tains, had undergone much suffering, but had amassed 
1,500 species of plants, 150 birds, 50 quadrupeds, and 
a number of insects. 

. At Norway House the parting from Augustus took 
place. That staunch little Esquimaux shed tears — a 
sign of emotion very unusual in those of his race — and 
the grief and affection he showed were fully recipro- 
cated by the officers. He begged to be informed if 
another expedition should be sent out, promising for 
himself and Ooligbuck to quit, at any time, family and 
home in order to follow any of their present leaders 
wherever they might be going. The Hudson's Bay 
Company undertook to disburse annually to them the 
Government pay for their services. Poor Augustus, 
however, did not live long to enjoy it. His fate was a 
melancholy one. When Back was himself in great 



176 Sir John Franklin, 

straits, it added much to his grief to hear that his old and 
faithful friend, who had been on his way to join him in 
his exploration of the Great Fish Eiver, had perished 
by starvation. That was in 1834. Faithful unto death, 
he was true to the promise he had made seven years 
before. 

Eichardson and Franklin reached Liverpool on the 
1st of September, 1827, having come by Lake 
Champlain and New York, where they were shown the 
utmost kindness, after an absence of two years and 
seven and a-half months. Back, Kendall, Drummond, 
and the rest, with two exceptions, arrived at Portsmouth 
on the 10th of October. Those two exceptions were 
Stewart, who had died of consumption, and Aird, who 
was drowned in the Slave Eiver, while he was striving 
to save the boat when it was being carried down a fall. 
It was a sad termination to this otherwise fortunate 
expedition, and to the lives of two good men and true, 
who were mourned alike by officers and men. All the 
survivors who had been in the King's service received 
promotion. 

The result of this second expedition was that it had 
left only fifty leagues of coast unsurveyed, from Point 
Turnagain to Icy Cape. In 1837, Messrs. Dease and 
Simpson completed the survey from Icy Cape to Eeturn 
Eeef. In 1834, Back discovered the source of, and de- 
scended, the Great Fish Eiver, now called by his name, 
but failed to reach Point Turnagain from its mouth 



Completion of Coast Survey, 177 

In 1838, Messrs. Dease and Simpson went beyond the 
Coppermine Eiver, but failed to reach Back's Eiver. 
Next year, however, by marvellous perseverance, they 
not only reached Back's Eiver, but sailed round the 
peninsula of Adelaide, and sighted a part of Boothia. 
Lastly, in 1845-47, Dr. Eae explored the peninsula of 
Boothia. And so the whole coast was mapped out in a 
little less than eighty years by the gradual discoveries 
of these hardy travellers, of whom Franklin was the 
chief pioneer. 



CHAPTER XII. 

FBANKLIN IN TASMANIA. 

Honours conferred on Franklin — His Second Marriage— Appointed 
Governor of Tasmania— His Letter thence — His and his Wife's 
Beneficence — Return Home. 

FKANKLIN had now added to the maps of North 
America a coast-line of more than 1,200 miles, 
and he was rewarded with honours both at home and 
abroad. He was knighted in 1829. The University of 
Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. The 
Geographical Society of Paris awarded him its gold 
medal, as having made the most important geographical 
discovery of the year, and elected him Foreign Corres- 
pondent. Later, in 1846, he was elected Correspondent 
of the Institute of France in the Academy of Sciences. 
But the pecuniary reward of £5,000, which had been 
offered for the successful navigation of that part of the 
sea which had been traversed by his men, was withheld, 
on the plea, as we have seen, that it had been performed 
in boats and not in a ship. Surely a shabbier evasion 
was never used to effect a more pitiful piece of economy. 
In 1828, the Secretary of the Admiralty carried a bill 



Franklin s Marriage, 179 

abolishing the reward offered, on the ground that the 
object had been achieved. 

On the 5th of November, 1828, Franklin married, as 
his second wife, Jane Griffen, daughter of a man of 
fortune, and on her mother's side descended from one of 
the Huguenot families which had fled to England at the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Never was man 
more fortunate in his marriages than he. His first 
wife devoted her dying hours to his fame ; his second 
wife consecrated her whole life to his memory. 

In 1832 he was appointed to the command of the 
frigate Bainbovj, on the Mediterranean station. The 
comfort which her officers and crew enjoyed soon 
became proverbial in the squadron, and the sailors, with 
their usual knack at playing on words, christened her 
the Celestial Rainbow, and the Paradise of Franklin. 
In acknowledgment of his services in the war of 
Liberation, especially off Patras, King Otho gave him 
the Cross of the Eedeemer, and on his return to England 
in 1834 he was made Knight Commander of the 
Guelphic Order of Hanover. When he set out for the 
Mediterranean his wife followed him. But as, accord- 
ing to the rules of the service, she could not remain on 
board a ship commanded by her husband, she travelled 
with some friends in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, only 
rejoining Sir John in places where he was stationed for 
some time. She had been familiarised with travelling 
before her marriage, having visited the various countries 



180 Sir John Franklin. 

of Europe in company with her father, who was a great 
connoisseur. 

The governorship of Antigua was offered to Franklin 
in 1836 by Lord Glenelg. This he refused; but he 
accepted the same position in the more important 
colony of Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, on condition 
that, if war broke out, he might resign it if he were 
offered the command of a ship. So much more did he 
value the chance of distinction in his profession, than 
the increased income to be obtained in the Civil Service. 
But either in war or peace, among civilised men or 
savages, his energetic practical mind was sure not to 
be idle. The same humane sagacity with which he 
had sought to ameliorate the condition of the Indians 
of North America was apparent in his new office. 
Quarter-deck despotism might seem a bad preparative 
for a civil magistrate's duties; but what had won for 
Franklin the affection of Back and Bichardson and 
others, was his habitual consideration for his subordi- 
nates. During the seven years of his stay, Franklin 
gained the esteem and attachment of the colonists by 
his unaffected cordiality and conciliatory spirit, as much 
as by his justice, his strict impartiality, and his 
enlightened devotion to their interests; thus fully 
justifying the anticipations of Dr. Arnold, who looked 
on his appointment as inaugurating a new era in 
Colonial administration, and said how delighted he 
himself should have been if circumstances had called 



Work in Tasmania. 181 

him to co-operate with such a man in organising an 
educational system for the young country. One of his 
most popular measures, which was soon imitated in the 
older colony of New South Wales, was to throw open 
to the public the Legislative Council, which, with the 
Executive Council, assisted the Lieutenant-General in 
his duties. Equally popular was his support of a 
petition sent by the Tasmanians to the mother country, 
in which they asked for a representative Government. 

He came to the colony at a critical time, and at once 
found his hands full of work which to many men 
would have been distasteful in the extreme. The year 
of his arrival saw the beginning of an emigration 
from Van Diemen's Land to the adjacent coast of the 
Australian Continent, which rapidly developed into the 
nucleus of the magnificent colony of Victoria. He 
found in Van Diemen's Land a community in which 
the convict element largely preponderated, under 
a system which, though suited to the earlier life of 
the colony, proved disadvantageous to bond and free 
when its numbers had increased. He gradually intro- 
duced modifications, but within the last year of his 
government the system was entirely re-modelled, partly 
in accordance with his own carefully considered sugges- 
tions, partly by orders from home, to meet the heavy 
strain imposed upon the colony by making it the sole 
receptacle for the felons of the United Kingdom. To 
Franklin's large and noble nature it was a labour of 



182 Sir John Franklin. 

love to give these outcasts a chance of again becoming 
good citizens, and he never lost sight of the obligation 
to unite the moral discipline of the convict with the 
unflinching coercion imposed by law. He used his 
position, in short, as one 

" Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, 
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train ! 
Turns his necessity to glorious gain ; 
In face of these doth exercise a power 
Which is our human nature's highest dower ; 
Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves 
Of their bad influence, and their good receives." 

In all his efforts on behalf of the female prisoner 
population he was zealously assisted by his wife, whose 
correspondence with Mrs. Fry was placed before the 
Colonial Minister, and is quoted in despatches from the 
Colonial Office. 

With equal solicitude she aided his efforts in behalf 
of the non-criminal portion of the community, to whom 
the new influx of convicts must have been a serious 
grievance. She employed a portion of her property in 
buying land on the banks of the beautiful Eiver Huon, 
which rolls its waters into Entrecasteaux Channel. On 
this land she placed tenants at a nominal rent, with 
the power of purchase, her object being to encourage 
and reward the industrious emigrant ; and to this small 
settlement one of the most flourishing districts of 
Tasmania owes its origin. To these beneficent measures 



His Activity. 183 



it was probably owing that during Franklin's tenure of 
office there was no organised opposition to the new 
transportation law. In acknowledgment of the zeal 
with which he faced the increased labour which these 
circumstances entailed, the Colonial Legislature offered 
to increase his salary to £4,000. He thought it right 
to decline this for himself, but for his successors he 
represented to the British Government that, in con- 
sideration of the expense entailed by this office, the pay 
was insufficient. Since then, the salary has been raised 
to £4,000, and other advantages are attached to the 
post. The following letter vividly describes the 
activity and anxieties of this period of his life : — 

Govt. House, Hobart Town, 
22nd June, 1837. 
My Dear Sir, 

If I had not been overpressed with business your 
kind letter should not have remained so long unanswered, 
and now the opportunity of writing has come upon me so 
unexpectedly, that I have no time to arrange my ideas 
sufficiently to write you a connected letter. There are, how- 
ever, but few subjects of daily occurrence at this place which 
could interest a person at a distance, though they are of 
all-engrossing importance to the parties on the spot. The 
questions of titles to estates being good or not, the settling 
of disputed boundaries of land, the making of roads and 
bridges in the retired disticts, and the endeavouring to 
adjust the conflicting struggles of the parties as to the line 
of these roads, are matters of daily occurrence ; and when to 



184 Sir John Franklin. 

this is added the general supervision over convicts and 
prison discipline, and that every trial, whether in the 
Supreme Court at Quarters Sessions or before the Police 
Magistrates, must be referred to me before the sentence is 
carried into execution, you will conceive I have enough to 
do. These duties are all in addition to the ordinary matters 
of the Government. One i;rain of ideas is so quickly dis- 
placed by another that I often wonder that confusion is not 
the result, yet everything goes on smoothly as yet. 

The system established by my predecessor, though not 
entirely unexceptionable, is yet so good that there is a far 
greater security of life and property here, and more external 
decorum in the streets, than in any other large town inEngiand. 
At first landing, everybody feels a kind of involuntary shudder 
cross him at the idea that he is surrounded by so many 
persons who have forfeited their liberty on account of crime, 
but this gradually wears away, and you learn to look on that 
class of men 'in the light of ordinary labourers, except they 
be in gangs under punishment, and clothed in yellow or a 
marked dress. After a certain period, if their conduct has 
been good, they receive a ticket-of-leave, which enables them 
to work for themselves and acquire property, but they have 
to reside in a certain district, and conform to certain regu- 
lations, such as being within doors after a given hour, to 
attend weekly muster and the church on a Sunday, if there 
be one near. I have been fancying your brother may be 
sent here in the Rose. We shall be very glad to see him, 
and offer him a bed, if he prefers putting up on shore during 
his stay. The ships, however, lie close to the wharf. 

I hope you will kindly write to me, and let me know any 



Dr. Arnold's Help. 185 

news you can pick up. Lady Franklin begs me to give her 

kind regards to you and your father. 

Ever, my dear sir, very truly yours, 

John Franklin. 
John Barrow, Esq., Admiralty. 

While mainly occupied by such duties, Franklin did 
not neglect the interests of science. Among the useful 
institutions which owed their origin to him may be 
mentioned a college, endowed partly out of his own 
purse, to which were admitted all youths who had 
passed a certain examination, without reference to 
what religious sect they belonged. At his request 
Dr. Arnold undertook the responsibility of selecting 
the first head of this institution. His choice fell upon 
a favourite pupil, the Eev. J. P. Gell, who afterwards 
became Franklin's son-in-law. But the liberal spirit 
of the founder found little favour in the eyes of various 
religious bodies, and when he had left the colony the 
college passed into the hands of the Church of 
England, though free admission was accorded to 
members of other persuasions. 

Towards the end of 1838, a scientific society, called 
the Tasmanian Society, was founded by Franklin at 
Hobart Town, the object of which was to treat of every- 
thing appertaining to the natural history, agriculture, 
and statistics of the colony. The meetings were held 
at Government House, and it was at his expense that 
the papers contributed by its members were published 



186 Sir John Franklin. 

at the Government Printing Press. Four years later, 
on the 16th of March, 1842, the first stone of an 
edifice destined to contain collections of natural 
history was laid by him, and under it a parchment 
with a commemorative inscription in English, French, 
German, Italian, Greek, and Latin. This building, 
which was completed at his expense, was called the 
Tasmanian Museum. Wishing to pay homage to the 
memory of Captain Flinders, under whom he had 
served, for his discovery of a part of New Holland, he, 
in 1839, at his own cost, raised to the memory of that 
seaman a beautiful granite obelisk in South Australia, 
with the co-operation of the Government there. 
Placed on the top of a hill a thousand or fifteen 
hundred feet high, this obelisk serves as a landmark for 
sailors. In 1840, a magnetic observatory, founded at 
Hobart Town in connection with the principal estab- 
lishment which Lieutenant-Colonel Sabine superin- 
tended at Woolwich, became the object of his constant 
care. 

Lady Franklin, who had accompanied her husband 
to Tasmania, actively seconded him in all his beneficent 
projects, and contributed to the popularity of his name, 
sharing all his interests, and identifying herself with 
his labours. They had, in fact, only one common 
thought, how they could co-operate in every possible 
way in promoting the welfare of their fellow-colonists. 
In Tasmania there were three kinds of snakes whose 



Lady Frank tins Beneficence. 187 

bite was fatal. In order to diminish their number, Lady 
Franklin put a price of a shilling a head on them, 
which she defrayed out of her own purse. So many 
were brought in in a few months, that she found that 
the expense would reach several hundred pounds 
a-yeaf. She was therefore obliged to reduce the head- 
money, first to sixpence and then to threepence. 
Finally, she was forced — not without regret — to abandon 
the project, being informed by the Colonial magistrates 
that it made numbers of the employed quit their work 
in order to gain the head-money and spend their time 
in hunting the serpents. 

Lady Franklin also, as mentioned already, bought large 
consignments of land, in which she established settlers, 
paying all their first expenses, and supplying them with 
implements for work, on such terms that, at the end of 
three years, some of them had repaid her all their debt, 
and blessed the name of their benefactress for the 
comfort they had attained. In 1850 she went to 
spend some time in Shetland, and occupied herself in 
recruiting emigrants for Van Die men's Land, where 
most of them — who at home were almost starving — had 
the chance of becoming in a short time, if they were 
only industrious and respectable, well-to-do farmers. 

Tasmania was the place where most of the expedi- 
tions of discovery in the Antarctic regions refitted. 
This gave Franklin the welcome opportunity of receiv- 
ing some of the most distinguished sailors of France 



188 Sir John Franklin 

and England. Among the most celebrated of them 
were Dumont d'Urville, doomed to so melancholy a 
death ; Jacquinot, his second in command ; Sir James 
Clark Boss, then commanding the Antarctic expedition 
of the Erebus and Terror, which afterwards became 
names of sorrowful import throughout the whole 
civilised world; and the captains of the surveying ships 
in those seas — Wickham, Harding, Owen, Stanley, 
Stokes, and Blackwood. To each and all he gave a 
generous welcome, and to a man of his tastes and 
experiences no society could have been more pleasant. 
But the first and only cloud which seems to have 
marred the serenity of a public life singularly happy 
and useful was now at hand. It could not be expected 
that a colony could be ruled without there being 
some opposition to the ruler. Disinterestedness and 
unflinching integrity secure respect, but not always 
acquiescence, and Franklin had his share of difficulty. 
Local interests, which had bound individuals together, 
seemed to him in some instances to interfere with the 
public good, and he considered that changes were 
requisite, even in the higher departments of the 
Government service. Having arrived at this con- 
clusion, he was not the man to shrink from the 
responsibility of carrying it out. Till then he had, 
by prudence and conciliation, steered his way success- 
fully through accumulating embarrassments. But, 
though gentle, he was firm, and not to be made the 



Franklin leaves Tasmania. 189 

cat's-paw of any individual or Government, and the 
time had come when he found it necessary resolutely 
to take his stand with reference to matters on which 
he and the Colonial Secretary were at variance. Were 
it not foreign to the purpose of this book to revive 
forgotten heart-burnings, it might be shown how little 
it was to the credit of those concerned that Franklin 
left the colony under the ban of official disapproval. 
And if his reputation needed vindication, the facts 
should, in any case, be related in full. But even at 
the time it never suffered. Those who knew best what 
had been going on, and for whom he had worked 
so long, so wisely, and so well, expressed their 
appreciation of the state of the case with an emphasis 
which makes further allusion to it superfluous. Before 
he left the colony, addresses poured in to him from 
every district ; and when he left it, the largest crowd 
ever, till then, seen on those shores "accompanied him 
to the ship." At the head of it walked the new Bishop 
of Tasmania and the new Colonial Secretary, and it 
contained a large majority of the people of Hobart 
Town, and representatives from the farthest parts of 
the island. Franklin walked to the pier amid their 
acclamations and blessings. Nine years afterwards, 
when Lady Franklin was appealing for funds to pro- 
secute the search for her lost husband, the Tasmanians 
showed that time had not weakened their sense of his 
worth by sending her, as their contribution, £1,700. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

franklin's last expedition. 

Anecdotes of Parry, Franklin, and Brougham — Instructions for 
another Polar Expedition — The Erebus and Terror — Fitzjames — 
Last sight of the two Ships — Kewards offered for their Relief "by 
Government — Their Track in 1845 — Cornwallis Island circum- 
navigated — Winter at Beechey Island — Deaths of Braine, Hartnell, 
and Torrington — Failure of Pemmican — Departure from Beechey 
Island in 1846 — Victoria Strait entered — Winter in the Pack — Gore's 
Visit to King William's Island in 1847— Death of Franklin— Slow- 
Drift down Victoria Strait — Second Winter in the Pack — The Ships 
abandoned — Rae's news of the Fate of the Expedition — M'Clintock's 
Discovery of the Record at Point Victory — Esquimaux Accounts — 
Conjectures as to what had happened — Geographical results of the 
Franklin era — Franklin's Character. 

FEANKLIN embarked on his voyage home from 
the young city of Melbourne, and thus secured the 
opportunity for revisiting places on the shores of the vast 
bay of Port Philip, on which, as a midshipman, he had 
landed with Flinders. He had been only a few months 
at home when Sir John Barrow sent to the Admiralty 
proposals for a new expedition to effect the discovery 
of the North- West Passage. His scheme was adopted, 
and, to Franklin's intense satisfaction, the command 
was offered to him. Lord Haddington (then First Lord 



Some Anecdotes. 191 

of the Admiralty), conversing, a few days before the 
offer was made, with Sir Edward Parry, whom he had 
icalled into consultation, said to him, as he cast a glance 
down the Navy List, " I see Franklin is sixty years old. 
Ought we to let him go ?" " My lord," answered Parry, 
" he is the best man for the post I know, and if you 
don't let him go, he will, I am certain, die of disappoint- 
ment." Afterwards, at an interview with Franklin 
himself, the First Lord made some similar speech, 
and added, " You might be content with your laurels, 
after having done so much for your country." With 
the vivacity of sixteen rather than sixty, Franklin 
responded, " My lord, I am only fifty-nine !" Lord 
Brougham made as accurate a diagnosis of his spirit as 
Parry. Meeting Sir John Herschel in the street, in 
the spring of 1845, he asked if it was true that 
Franklin was going in command of the expedition, and, 
on Herschel saying it was perfectly true, remarked, 
" Arctic work gets into the blood of these men. 
They can't help going again if they get a chance." 

In the instructions given to Franklin by the Ad- 
miralty, he was told that, though the main object 
of the expedition was to be the discovery of a passage 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, he was to 
neglect no opportunity of making scientific obser- 
vations, and collecting information on geography and 
terrestrial magnetism. The expedition was to consist 
of two vessels — the Erebus and the Terror — which were 



192 Sir John Franklin. 

to be accompanied as far as Baffin's Bay by a transport 
ship — the Barreto Junior — which was to carry out 
supplies of clothes, provisions, and coal, so far. Frank- 
lin was told to make for Davis' Straits and Baffin's Bay, 
then to deflect westward, through Lancaster and Bar- 
row Straits, to Cape Walker, a point on Bussel Island. 
He would then be in about latitude 74J° K, and longi- 
tude 98° W. ; and, instead of attempting to find a 
passage along the south of Melville Island, as Parry 
had done, he was to strike southward and westward 
in a course as direct for Bering's Straits as the 
position of the ice and land as yet unknown should 
allow. If he found all progress in this direction 
impossible, he was to sail northwards, and attempt 
to pass between North Devon and Cornwallis Islands. 

Such were his general instructions. In carrying them 
out, much was left to his discretion. The Erebus and 
Terror had already been in the Arctic and Antarctic 
Seas for seven winters, and were considered especially 
adapted for the service. The crew of the Erebus con- 
sisted of seventy men, including the captain and 
officers, and that of the Terror of sixty-eight men. 
The latter was commanded by Captain Crozier, who 
had served under Parry and Ross. Second in command 
to Franklin himself on the Erebus was Fitzjames, 
specially charged with the supervision of the magnetic 
researches that were contemplated. Well officered, 
well manned, and well victualled, the expedition sailed 



A Prosperous Start. 193 

from Greenhithe on the 19th of May, 1845, and reached 
Whale Fish Islands, near Disco, in Greenland, on the 
4th of July. From this place the Barreto Junior, 
having unloaded its stores, returned to England with 
the last despatch which the Admiralty ever received 
from Franklin. He was in high spirits and full of 
hope. "The ships," he wrote on the 12th of July, 
" are now complete with supplies of every kind for 
three years ; they are therefore very deep, but happily 
we have no reason to expect much sea as we proceed 
further." 

His enthusiasm was shared to the full by his officers 
and men. Fitzjames wrote to Sir John Barrow's son 
that Franklin was a delightful captain to serve under, 
full of energy, activity, and sound judgment, and with 
a wonderful memory. There seemed to be no falling 
off in his old powers. His conversation was as 
attractive as it was instructive, and enlivened by 
interesting stories of his previous voyages. By his 
extreme thoughtfulness and kindness he had won the 
affections of all under his command, and impressed Fitz- 
james with the conviction that, for an expedition where 
good sense and perseverance were the chief requisitxes, 
no better commander could have been found anywhere 
than his captain, with whom he had already learnt 
much, and under whom he was delighted to serve. 
Another of the officers, Lieutenant Fairholme, wrote 
home by the same ship in a similar strain, saying he 



194 Sir John Franklin, 

should not know how to tell his friend how much 
everyone liked the captain, who had gained not only 
the respect but the attachment of all on board. It 
was the old story over again. As Franklin had by his 
gentle demeanour so impressed the natives of North 
America that he was long remembered by them as 
" the Great Chief who would not kill a mosquito/' 
so even in this short space of time he had managed 
to endear himself to all his associates. " Sir John," 
Lieutenant Fairholme went on, "is in much better 
health than when we left home, and really looks ten 
years younger. He takes an active part in everything 
that goes on, and his long experience in such services 
makes him a most valuable adviser." 

Such were the sentiments of mutual goodwill with 
which the last letters from the doomed crews which 
ever reached England were filled. On the 26th of 
July, the Prince of Wales, a whaling vessel, saw the 
Erebus and Terror awaiting in Melville Bay a favour- 
able opportunity for crossing the "middle ice," and 
the captain was invited to dine with Franklin. But a 
breeze springing up, the ships parted company, and 
from that day to this were never more seen by civilised 
men. It was as if some great fog had lifted for a 
moment, only to envelope ships and crews again and 
for ever in its dumb, dark folds. Two years passed by, 
and nothing was heard of the expedition. But little or 
no anxiety was felt as to its fate. Sir John Ross did 



TJie First Alarm. 195 

indeed write to "the Admiralty a year and a-half later, 
suggesting that the ships were frozen up at the western 
end of Melville Island, but there were no grounds for 
such a supposition, and the strongest probabilities 
against it, and neither Sir John Eoss nor Franklin's 
old friend Eichardson entertained any apprehension. 
But when two years had come and gone, and the last 
month of 1847 slipped away, and still there were no 
tidings, another feeling spread fast — 

" 0, the silence that came next, the patience and long 
aching !" 

For twelve consecutive years, expedition after 
expedition was sent out, at first with the object of 
ascertaining the fate of the two vessels, and afterwards 
in the forlorn hope of finding some solitary survivor of 
the catastrophe which by that time was known to 
have taken place. In 1849, the British Government 
offered a reward of £20,000 to any one of any nation 
who should rescue the crew of the Erebus and Terror ; 
of £10,000 to any one who should rescue, or be 
instrumental in rescuing a portion of them; and of 
£10,000 to the first person who should succeed in 
ascertaining their fate. Over £800,000 are said to 
have been spent in equipping the various vessels sent 
on the search, an expenditure to which Lady Franklin 
and Mr. Grinnell, of New York, contributed largely out 
of their own purses. No less than forty expeditions, by 



196 Sir John Franklin. 

land or sea, were made between 1847 and 1859. 
During this long search, many thousands of miles 
of previously unexplored coasts were added to our 
maps, many more thousands previously known were 
carefully re-examined, the delineation of the coast- 
line of the American Continent was completed, and, for 
the first time, men who had sailed to its northern 
shores through Bering's Straits returned by Baffin's 
Bay. Briefly stated, these were the main material 
results of the search for Franklin. Its other results no 
one can estimate. Human heroism always, perhaps, 
effects more in the future than in the present ; and if 
we could trace the fruits of such examples of individual 
courage and endurance as were then set, to be conned 
over and assimilated by generation after generation of 
English boys and men, the sum spent in the search 
would, apart from all other considerations, be found, 
perhaps, to be as profitable an investment of a million 
as a nation ever made. But before anything more is 
said about these expeditions, the sad story of the 
Erebus and Terror remains to be told. 

After parting company with the Prince of Wales, 
the two ships made their way through the ice to 
Lancaster Sound. Passing Cape Warrender, they 
sailed on till they came to Beechey Island, at the 
entrance of the unknown waters of Wellington 
Channel. According to his instructions, Franklin 
tried, no doubt, to reach Cape Walker, and thence to 



The Voyage. 197 



make his way south-westwards to the coast of North 
America. But he must have found the sea blocked 
up by ice, and, seeing a passage possible in Wellington 
Channel, he chose that course, and, ascending to the 
seventy-seventh parallel, returned by the west side of 
the land, till then known as Cornwallis Land, which he 
thus ascertained to be an island. How many attempts 
were made, before or after this exploration of Welling- 
ton Channel, to force a passage southwards, we shall 
never know. We can fancy the vivid hopes which 
this quick passage so far would have excited, and how, 
as the autumn came on with its fresh ice-formation 
and its lengthening night, it became gradually clear 
that these hopes must be laid by for another year. 

So far, the expedition had been thoroughly success- 
ful. Nor did its good fortune end here. Instead of 
being locked in the outward ice-drift, and remaining 
its prisoners for months — as was the fate afterwards of 
De Haven and M'Clintock — the Erebus and Terror 
reached the bay at Beechey Island subsequently known 
by their name, and Franklin — no doubt with a thankful 
heart — made all the arrangements for the winter of 
1845-46 which his previous experiences suggested. 
He had, indeed, every reason to be satisfied with his 
achievements and prospects. He had traversed three 
hundred miles in his circumnavigation of Cornwallis 
Island. Only two hundred and fifty miles had to be 
traversed from Cape Walker, and the last link in the 



198 Sir John Franklin. 

North-West Passage would be discovered. It was a 
cheery outlook for the coming spring. 

Meanwhile the winter night had to be endured, and 
all that could be thought of to occupy the men's time 
profitably and healthfully was carried into execution. 
An observatory was carefully built, with a double 
embankment, and a neat pathway leading to it. A 
shooting gallery was devised under the cliffs, where 
empty bottles and meat-tins bore witness to many 
merry excursions. A huge cairn, eight feet high and 
six feet long at each side of the base, was erected on 
the north point of tha island, the materials for it being 
old meat-tins filled with gravel. Another cairn was 
built on the south-west. Tents for magnetic observa- 
tions were rigged up. A large storehouse and work- 
shop and a blacksmith's forge were built. Even a 
garden was made, into which the mosses and anemones 
gathered by the botanists of. the party were trans- 
planted. Sledge parties were organised, and nearly six 
years afterwards the tracks of the sledges were visible 
on the frozen snow. We have seen in a previous 
chapter how the long hours of the Arctic night were 
utilised by Franklin and his officers at Fort Enterprise,, 
and we can with certainty picture to ourselves the 
routine and the holiday festivities of the winter of 
1845-46. The naturalist's specimens were classified. 
The journals were written up daily. Daily meteoro- 
logical observations were recorded. Each nian was 



Winter Pursuits. 199 

obliged to take regular exercise. A newspaper, perhaps, 
was published. All sorts of games were played by the 
light of the aurora or the moon, or, in rough weather, 
in-doors. The men attended schools formed by the 
officers. Amateur theatricals were set on foot. Christ- 
mas and New Year's Day were celebrated with an 
enthusiasm unequalled perhaps in any home in Eng- 
land — perhaps, too, with almost as good cheer. And 
at last the greatest day of all arrived, when some of 
many eager eyes caught the first glint of the long-lost 
sun, and all hearts were from that day forward full of 
visions of hope for the summer at hand. 

But their employments and thoughts were not wholly 
pleasant. When the English and American expeditions, 
searching for Franklin, were at Beechey Island in 1850, 
the commanders — Sir John Eoss, Captain Penny, and 
Captain De Haven — had, on August 27th, settled a 
combined plan of operations, and had just separated 
to carry them into effect, when a man came running 
over the ice to the spot where Captain Penny stood, 
calling out, "Graves, Captain Penny, graves!" for on 
the crest of the isthmus connecting the so-called island— 
which is, however, strictly speaking, a peninsula — with 
the shore, amid the snow and slate all round, three 
graves had been found, coped with slabs of limestone, 
and with headstones, on which were cut the following 
inscriptions : — - 



200 Sir John Franklin, 



Sacred 

to the 

Memory 

of 

W. Braine, K.M., 

H.M.S. Erebus, 

Died April 3rd, 1846, 

Aged 32 years. 

" Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." 

Joshua, ch. xxiv. 15. 

Sacred to the Memory of 
John Hartnell, A.B., of H.M.S. 

Erebus, 
Aged 23 years. 

" Thus saith the Lord, consider your ways." 

Haggai i. 7. 

Sacred 

to 

The Memory 

of 

John Torrington, 

Who departed this life, 

January 1st, a.d. 1846, 

On board of 

H.M.'s Ship Terror, 

Aged 20 years. 

Three brave men went therefore to their rest that 
winter, and three times their comrades formed a sorrow- 
ful procession to lay them in their graves. Full, of pity 



Departure from Beechey Island. 201 

they were then, little dreaming how soon they would 
envy them their fate. But the texts on the tombs are 
eloquent of the manly spirit with which the lessons of 
death were accepted, and when at length the summer 
came, and the ice-barriers gave way, it was with hopes 
undashed by sad memories that the 126 survivors left 
their winter home to strike once more southwards for 
the North American coast. 

Probably enough the release came suddenly. There 
would be some sudden shift of the ice, and every one 
not on board would be hastily recalled as the order 
was given to put to sea. Some slight evidence that 
this was really the case was found. Amid the debris 
of the encampment — scraps of paper, bits of rope canvas 
and tarpaulin, halves of barrels sawn in two for wood 
tubs — were found a key, and a pair of gloves laid out 
to dry, with stones on them to keep the wind from 
blowing them away, which in the hurry of departure 
the owners would have forgotten, or have had no time 
to fetch. We can imagine how eagerly these traces of 
the lost explorers were scanned by those who first found 
them. How confident they must have been of finding 
some paper which would give a detailed account of the 
past experience and the future intentions of Sir John 
Franklin. But record there was none. All but the 
tombs themselves was silent as the tomb. In all the 
relics in every part of the encampment, including of 
course the cairn, which was examined most closely, not 



202 Sir John Franklin. 

a morsel of information could be found. The cause of 
this strange silence has since been understood. The 
Polar bear unites to incredible strength a sort of 
horribly perverse curiosity which makes him rummage 
everything of human manufacture. There is no reason 
to doubt that papers, carefully sealed, were duly 
deposited in the cairn on Beechey Island, and that 
either the winds carried them away in pieces from 
the claws of the bears, or that they were more slowly 
digested in their stomachs. 

The tale of the sojourn at Beechey Island is not, 
however, quite finished. One black spot in the hopeful 
prospect had already appeared. It will be remembered 
that the expedition had been amply victualled by the 
Admiralty for three years. Though Wellington Channel 
and Queen's Channel had been explored, and the lands 
on both sides added to the map, one year only had been 
occupied in the work, and two years' provisions should, 
by rights, have been remaining. But, alas ! this was far 
from being the case. The preserved meats supplied 
had been those of Goldner's patent, and when it was 
known in England that seven hundred or more of the 
tins had been found on Beechey Island, while at Ports- 
mouth a large quantity of the same meat had been 
condemned as putrid, it was plain that this vile stuff 
had been thrown away as worthless, and that, unless 
game had been found in plenty during the summer of 
1846, the officers of the expedition must have left 



The Voyage Southwards. 203 

Beechey Island in danger of scurvy, if not as yet of 
starvation. 

Not a misgiving, however, was probably felt by 
anyone in either ship when, in the summer of 1846, 
the two consorts sailed down Peel's Sound, with Prince 
of Wales Land on their right hand and North Somerset 
on their left. And all for a time went well. In 
accordance with the law by which the great fields of ice 
in the Arctic Ocean are ever floating towards warmer 
seas, the ice pent up in Parry Sound is incessantly, 
though slowly pouring towards Lancaster Sound, and 
the channel which has been ascertained to lead to the 
coast of North America between Prince of Wales Land 
and Victoria Land, and which is now known by the 
name of M'Clintock Channel. Prince of Wales Land 
forms a barrier to this vast ice-flow, so that the sea to 
the east of it is navigable in summer, while that to the 
west of it is choked with pack-ice, which melts only as 
it comes in contact with the warmer water flowing from 
the North American Continent. Directly, therefore, 
the ships had emerged from Peel Sound into that part 
of Victoria Strait where no sheltering land protected 
them, they came athwart the. stream of pack-ice making 
straight for the shore of King William's Land, and 
instead of their hitherto cheering progress, they were 
compelled to drift slowly southwards with the ice. 
The monotonous perils of such a drift we know by 
other instances, such as of the American, De Haven, 



204 Sir John Franklin. 

who was carried by the ice from Wellington Channel 
into Baffin's Bay, and was in its clutches from Septem- 
ber, 1850, to June, 1851. 

The exact date of the departure from Beechey Island 
will never be known. But no doubt it was in the 
month of August, 1846. By the 12th of September 
Franklin had advanced as far as about 12 miles 
due north of Cape Felix, the north point of King 
William's Land. There the grip of the ice locked the 
ships in when two hundred of the three hundred miles 
between Cape Walker and Cape Herschel had been 
passed, and the prize he had been striving for for so 
many years seemed fairly in his grasp. Had he 
only known what was ascertained a few years later, 
that prize would have actually been won, and he, 
perhaps, have lived to bring the news to England. But 
it was not to be. 

Any one who has read the preceding pages, and 
glanced at the map, will see how large a portion of the 
North American Continent had been traced by Franklin 
himself. His old friend Back had struck the coast at 
the mouth of the Great Fish Eiver. Messrs. Dease and 
Simpson had connected his discoveries with those of 
Franklin and Eichardson westwards, and had extended 
them eastwards as far as the Castor and Pollux Eiver, 
in 1839. King William's Land was, therefore, known 
to be separated from the mainland on the south, and 
on its south-western side Messrs. Dease and Simpson 



A Fatal Error. 205 



had erected a cairn at Cape Herschel in 1839. Bat it 
was still called King William's Land, for the channel 
between its eastern shore and the Boothian Isthmus 
had not yet been traced, as it was soon afterwards by 
Ross and Eae. The northern part of it was, indeed j 
known, but it was marked on the charts as a bay by 
the name of Poet's Bay, and Franklin could not be 
certain that if he sailed down it he would not be sailing 
into a cul de sac, and so fatally terminating his voyage. 
All he did know was that if he could reach Cape 
Herschel, on the west side of King William's Land, he 
would have connected the unknown with the known, 
and solved the problem of the North- West Passage. 
One short hundred miles, in almost a straight line. 
That was all that remained to be completed. But 
the circuitous route would have been his salvation, 
and in that short passage death lay in wait for him and 
his men. Just as Prince of Wales Land acts as a 
breakwater to the ice-stream further North, so King 
William's Island does on the South ; and whereas on 
its fearfully bleak western side ho ship could ever 
probably make its way, on the east a passage might be 
found in summer which would lead by the south of the 
island to the estuary of Back's Great Fish River. But 
of this Franklin knew nothing. There was his chart, and, 
following the only course which it pointed out as pos- 
sible, he strove to make his way down Victoria Strait. 
The -ships were beset on the 12th of September, 



206 Sir John Franklin. 

1846, when they were just in sight of King William's 
Land, and the winter months were spent in latitude 
70° 5' North, and longitude 98° 23' West, amid the oceanic 
ice which had poured down between Victoria Land and 
Prince of Wales Land, through what is now known as 
M'Clintock Strait. That they passed those months as 
pleasantly as those of the previous years we can 
scarcely imagine. Then, every one was buoyed up by 
the consciousness of a great success achieved, and a 
still greater one in prospect during the coming summer. 
Now, the summer was over, another working year was 
gone, and, if not as far from their goal as before, a 
barrier lay between it which might prove insurmount- 
able after all. But still they would hope for the best. 
Surely in a whole summer the ice would open enough 
for them to force the ships a hundred miles. Mean- 
while, as soon as spring came, sledge parties should be 
organised, and the North- West Passage, if it really, as 
now it was impossible to doubt, existed, should for the 
first time be beheld by civilised men. 

Accordingly, on Monday, the 24th of May, 1847, 
Lieutenant Graham Gore and Mr. Charles F. Des Yceux, 
mate, left the ships with six men to deposit papers at 
the cairn built on King William's Land by Sir James 
Eoss in 1831, intending, no doubt, to proceed after- 
wards to Cape Herschel, so as to discover with their 
own eyes the missing link in the North- West Passage, 
" Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. All 



Gore's Record. 



207 



well," were the cheery words which Gore wrote on the 
paper before he deposited it. So we know that, what- 
ever had been the occurrences of the winter of 1846-47, 
there had been no serious loss by death or illness. 




TRACK OP THE CREWS OF THE "EREBUS AND "TERROR. 



Probably there were still 126 men on the two ships, 
and though they could hardly have escaped some 
attacks of scurvy, these had been slight, and, as the 
days grew longer, were passing away. 



208 Sir John Franklin. 

Gore could not find the cairn of Sir James Boss in 
the place where he expected it would be. But 
apparently he did find a cairn, four miles to the north 
of the spot, on Point Victory. There he left the record, 
and, as we may guess, set off at once for Cape Herschel. 
In any case, after completing his mission he returned to 
the ships. If he did go to Cape Herschel, and if none of 
the crew had been there before him — a thing perhaps 
improbable in itself, but to which the absence of other 
records lends some colour — he returned full of triumph, 
and with the eagerness of a messenger of good tidings. 
But his joy was turned to sorrow when he reached the 
Erebus and Terror. "All was well" no longer. Sir 
John Franklin was dying or dead. How he died we 
shall never know. The day we do know — June 11th, 
1847, eighteen days after -Gore's party had left the 
ships. Did they come back too late ? Or did the 
news of the achievement of a life's enterprise come just 
in time to soothe the brave old seaman's last hours ? If 
so, who would pity him ? A noble life was nobly ended. 
Did anyone ever pity Nelson ? Here, too, though in 
more peaceful service, a great captain's eyes closed on a 
crowning victory. The horrors to come he was not 
doomed to witness. Calmly, as the brave do always, he 
yielded up his spirit, stainless as the snows which were 
to give him burial, with weeping friends at his bedside, 
with the consciousness that his name would be im- 
mortal, in the cause that he loved best in the world. 



Franklin s Death. 209 

For such a fate few tears should fall. Men and officers 
mourned for him then, no doubt, bitterly. -But many 
of them, when, stricken with scurvy and starvation, they 
fell down on the hopeless road southwards in 1843, 
must, even in the depths of their own misery, have 
thanked Heaven that their old Captain's last hours 
were untroubled by despair and suffering like their 
own. Happier than they, he had died as one who 

" Finds comfort in himself and in his cause ; 
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause." 

At Franklin's death the chief command devolved 
upon Captain Crozier — Fitzjames, captain of the Erebus, 
being second to him in rank. An anxious duty had 
fallen to their lot, namely, to decide whether they 
should stay by the ships for another summer, or at once 
prepare for an overland journey along the banks, or a 
boat-voyage up the waters of the Great Fish Eiver. 
We can clearly understand how the reasons for the 
former course outweighed those for the latter. With 
the exception of the Captain's death, the health of the 
ships' companies was apparently good. True it was 
that, owing to the failure of the preserved meat, the 
gravest apprehensions of scurvy might have been felt. 
But the causes of that disease were less known then 
than now, and whatever the experience of the autumn 
of 1846 might have been, it would not have quenched 



210 Sir John Franklin. 

the hope of collecting supplies of meat and fish in the 
summer of 1847. Again, the perils of an overland 
march were too vividly impressed on the men, who had 
heard them from Franklin's lips, to be encountered 
except in the last emergency. It was too early to hope 
that their friends at home had sent help to them by 
way of Hudson's Bay. If they succeeded in reaching 
the Great Fish River, they would be dependent solely 
on their own success in fishing and the chase. Without 
Indian hunters the chance of subsisting by such means 
w r as small indeed. The instinctive dislike of a sailor 
to desert his ship would enforce these considerations. 
And, above all, no one probably could in his heart 
believe that another summer would not release the 
vessels from the ice. The distance to be traversed was 
so short that it must have been impossible to despair of 
deliverance. On the whole it may be said that, even if 
the ships had been abandoned in 1847 instead of 1848, 
the fate of the crews would have been the same, unless 
their greater strength had induced the Esquimaux 
whom they afterwards met to aid them. 

The summer of 1847 saw them slowly drifting down 
Victoria Strait with the ice, till they were fifteen miles 
north of Cape Victory, and only sixty miles from Cape 
Herschel and the open water along the coast of the 
main land. When first they were aware of their 
movement, how fast hope w T ould have revived ! Then, 
as its intolerable slowness became apparent,, how dread- 



A Black Outlook. 211 

ful would have been their suspense ! Finally, when 
the autumn came, and the young ice formed, with what 
difficulty would the officers assume cheerful faces, and 
stifle their own forebodings, in order to keep up the 
courage of their men. It is well known that despon- 
dency and the absence of light predispose men to 
scurvy, which a diet mainly consisting of salt meat 
would by itself induce. All three of these adverse 
conditions were sorely felt during the winter of 1847-8 
—for it is not likely that fresh meat of any importance 
was procured on the desolate shores of King William's 
Land. And by the spring of 1848 the fell scourge of 
Arctic explorers had made terrible havoc among the 
men whom, in the preceding May, Gore had described 
as " all well." One hundred and twenty-six men were 
then alive; but in April, 1848, nine officers and eleven 
men, besides Franklin, were dead. Of these officers, 
Gore himself was one. A hundred and five, therefore, 
were left when it was decided to abandon the ships, 
and make for the Great Fish Kiver along the coast of 
King William's Island. How far the progress of scurvy, 
and how far the prospect of starvation, induced this 
step, we can hardly decide. The expedition had only 
been provisioned till July, 1848, and the preserved 
meat had turned out useless. They shot a good many 
birds, no doubt, and probably a few seals and bears, 
but no deer or oxen, for the Esquimaux told Captain 
M'Clintock that there were few of the former and none 



212 Sir John Franklin, 

of the latter on King William's Island. It is true that 
there were fewer mouths to feed than when the expedi- 
tion started with its full complement of 134 men, five 
of whom had returned before the ships were last seen 
in Baffin's Bay. And other motives besides want of 
food would have induced them to set out early. They 
had over 1,250 miles to travel before they could reach 
the nearest fur-post, if they went overland, and their 
first thought would be to substitute for this a sea 
voyage, if possible. With the narratives of Franklin's 
and Eichardsou's boat-voyages present to their minds, 
it is possible that they intended to drag the boats to 
the Great Fish River, and there attempt to lay in a 
stock of deer's meat and fish sufficient to last till they 
reached the Mackenzie River, which they would have 
then ascended to Fort Resolution; or more probably 
they meant , to ascend the Great Fish River itself, 
having the means of constructing smaller boats with 
them if it became necessary to abandon the large ones. 
For either of these plans an early start was imperatively 
necessary, and we may perhaps conclude that they were 
driven to leave the ships in April by these motives, and 
by the alarming inroads of scurvy, rather than by any 
actual lack of food on board the ships. We know, i» 
fact, that their supply of pemmican was not wholly 
exhausted at this time, for a case that had held twenty- 
two pounds was found in the boat they abandoned. 
That afterwards many of them perished by starvation 



A Forlorn Hope. 213 

is quite certain. But it is also certain that they had 
grievously overrated their strength, and we may con- 
jecture that it was because they took too little food at 
starting, rather than because they had too little to take, 
that they ultimately succumbed to famine. 

There is positive and inferential evidence for this 
conjecture. Of the latter kind is the expectation 
which they would reasonably have formed of meeting 
Esquimaux, from whom they would purchase assistance. 
Again, the enormous stock of superfluous articles taken 
with them would never have been taken if, on the one 
hand, they had been actually starving, or, on the other, 
they had been careful to carry as little with them as 
the} 7 could of anything except food. Some of the 
smaller articles would be taken for barter, but much 
was carried off which had no value in their circum- 
stances, though valuable in civilised lands. Starving 
men would not have thought of loading themselves 
with such goods, which, however, if confident of having 
sufficient food, they would naturally try to save. The 
positive evidence is that some of the party returned to 
the ships. One body was found by the Esquimaux on 
one of the ships, which was in the end driven ashore. 
Had this man died before the first exodus, his comrades 
would certainly have buried him. Again, Captain 
M'Clintock found a boat, sixty-five miles from the 
place where the ships had been abandoned, pointing 
towards the ships. The haulers of that boat must have 



214 Sir yohn Franklin. 

been returning ; and they certainly would not have 
returned if there had been no food left on board. 

But taking this point for granted, we are only 
involved in further difficulties impossible to solve, 
when we come to compare the record left by the 
party with the accounts gathered from the Esquimaux. 
Hitherto we have been depending solely on the words 
of that record, which, though meagre and curiously 
inexact, is intelligible enough. Consequently we have 
been able to tell a connected story. But now we have 
to collate evidence apparently inconsistent and irrecon- 
cilable. All that can be done is to construct the most 
probable theory of what may have happened, after 
briefly stating what really did happen, in order to 
complete the preceding narrative. 

What did happen was this. On the 22nd of April, 
1848, the 105 survivors, under the command of Captain 
Crozier, landed on King William's Island, in latitude 
69° 37' 42" K, longitude 98° 41' W., having deserted 
the Terror and Erebus five leagues N.N.'W. of their 
place of landing. The document deposited by Gore 
was taken up from the place where he had left it, 
four miles to the northward, near Point Victory, and 
deposited on the site of Sir James Eoss's Pillar. The 
above information was added to it, as was the change 
of its location. Gore's death was incidentally men- 
tioned. The date of the arrival of the crews at the site 
of the pillar was April 23rd, and on the 26th they were 



Progress from the Ships, 215 

to start for the Great Fish. Eiver. Neither Captain 
Crozier nor Lieutenant Irving, who wrote the additions 
to Gore's document, had the time or means to solder up 
the cylinder in which it was replaced. They merely 
placed it at the top of the cairn whence it had rolled to 
the ground, and there it was found in 1859. 

Three days, therefore, it had taken the party to 
traverse the fifteen miles which lay between this spot 
and the Erebus and Terror. Already they had found 
out their weakness, and a vast quantity of articles was 
thrown away here which they found themselves unable 
to carry farther — viz., four heavy sets of boat's cooking 
stoves, pickaxes, iron hoops, old canvas, part of a copper 
lightning-conductor, curtain-rods, and a large quantity 
of clothing. After thus lightening their loads, they 
proceeded along the western shore of King William's 
Island, dragging boats or sledges. Somewhere on the 
journey one of these boats was abandoned, and was found, 
with two skeletons in it, in 1859, at a spot fifty miles 
from Point Victory, pointing not southwards, but in 
the direction of the ships. Those who were with the 
other boat or boats marched, on, sleeping in tents at 
night, and hauling their load on sledges by drag-ropes. 
Every now and then one of them dropped down and died. 
Some of these, such as Lieut. Le Vescomte, were buried 
by the survivors. Forty of them thus dragging along a 
boat met with some Esquimaux sealers, whom they told 
(according to the Esquimaux tale to Dr. Rae) that their 



216 Sir John Franklin. 

ships had been crushed in the ice (which we know not 
to have been the case), and that they were going where 
they expected to find deer to shoot. All looked thin, 
and seemed in want of .provisions ; and all hauled, 
except one tall, stout, middle-aged officer. 

Thus much — though some of it is based on the 
narratives of Esquimaux, who, whenever they speak of 
numbers, are anything but exact — we may be said to 
know, practically, for certain. What happened after- 
wards is matter for conjecture, for the formation of 
which we have to rely partly on intelligence coming 
from the same source, and collected by Dr. Eae, 
Lieut. M'Clintock, Mr. Anderson, Captain Hall, and 
Lieut. Schwatka, partly on the silent evidence of the 
relics found by those explorers. Here and there 
skeletons have been discovered, marking the spot 
where some unfortunate man fell down and died from 
exhaustion on the march, or, perhaps, when he had left 
the main body to look for game. One of these was found 
by M'Clintock near Cape Herschel, speaking, even in 
death, of the successful achievement of the North-Yv^est 
Passage by Franklin's expedition. The bones of another 
were brought home by Captain Hall, and are supposed 
to have been those of Lieutenant Le Yescomte. The 
same commander heard that a tent full of bodies and a 
boat had been seen in Terror Bay, and that seven 
corpses were buried at or near Todd's Island. Dr. Eae 
heard that five bodies were found on an island, and 



The Last Survivors. 217 

thirty on the mainland at the entrance to the estuary 
of the Great Fish Eiver. This island was supposed 
to be Montreal Island when M'Clintock explored it. 
But he found nothing of note, and was driven to 
account for the absence of any important relics by the 
supposition that they must have been washed away by 
the sea. Whether the seven men of Todd's Island and 
the five whom Dr. Eae heard of are identical we cannot 
say for certain, but it seems probable. The relics found 
on Montreal Island were, we may assume, brought 
there by Esquimaux, and Lieutenant Schwatka con- 
firms Captain Hall's account, that the last survivors 
died in the hollow of the bay formed by Point Richard- 
son. Some of these were in tents, and one officer lay 
on his double-barrelled gun, with his telescope strapped 
to his shoulders. Their boat was said to have been 
crushed by ice, and was, in any case, never seen again 
by any European. No doubt they left a record at Cape 
Herschel as they prepared to cross to the mainland, but 
none was found there, and it was probably taken away 
by the Esquimaux. Of the ships, one may have sunk 
or been destroyed by the natives ; the other is supposed 
to have drifted southwards, and to have gone ashore 
on King William's Island or somewhere on the coast of 
Adelaide Peninsula, opposite the coast where the boat's 
crew perished. 

It is clear from the above details what was the fate 
of a considerable portion of the expedition. From fifty 



218 Sir John Franklin. 

to sixty men, at least, out of the original number— 105 
— are accounted for. But this question at once arrests 
our attention — what became of the remainder ? Some 
may have lain down to die where, when the ice melted, 
their bodies would fall into the water, and " be lost 
evermore in the main." But surely they would be 
comparatively few. Again, are we quite safe in 
identifying the forty men who reached the estuary 
of the Great Fish Eiver with the forty seen by the 
Esquimaux on the north-west of King William's 
Island in spring, when we remember, first, that these 
Esquimaux said that they were told by the party that 
their ships had been crushed by the ice, and, secondly, 
that M'Clintock was told that one ship was crushed 
in the fall of the year, and that her crew had landed in 
safety ? All we can say is, that at this point in 
our narrative speculation begins, and that almost every 
theory which can be formed is open to grave objections. 
On the whole, it seems more than possible that a 
separation took place after the ships were abandoned in 
spring, and that the Esquimaux accounts are a confused 
version of two attempts at escape — -one by the united 
body, the other by a portion who returned to the ships, 
and either remained by them till one sank and the other 
was wrecked, or were eventually forced to leave them 
by hunger, or were murdered by the Esquimaux. 

But before proceeding further, it may be mentioned 
that it was while this narrative was beingf written 



Lieutenant Schwatka. 219 

that Lieutenant Schwatka, an officer in the American 
navy, was, with three other Europeans — Messrs. Gilder, 
Klutschak, and Melms — actually engaged in trying 
to clear up the mystery which still hangs over the 
fate of Franklin's expedition. From Chesterfield 
Inlet they struck across the country for Back's Fish 
Biver, starting on April 1st, 1879. On May 22nd 
they reached it, after following for ninety miles the 
course of a river which Lieutenaut Schwatka named 
" Hayes," after the President of the United States. 
After examining Montreal Island, he thoroughly 
searched the western side of King William's Island, 
and collected some relics of the expedition — among 
them the bones of a man supposed to have been 
Lieutenant Irving, and since buried at Edinburgh. 
The chivalrous motive of this expedition, the success 
with which its members adapted themselves to the 
Esquimaux diet, and the extremities of cold which they 
suffered without injury, will always make it memorable. 
But though the newspapers, oblivious of evidence long 
before obtained, represented some old and unpleasant 
reports as new discoveries, practically this expedition 
has added nothing to what was already known. 

Our main reliance must still be placed on the state- 
ments in the record found at Point Victory. All we 
can do is to compare these statements with the various 
accounts given by the Esquimaux on various occasions, 
and with the facts observed by M'Clintock, and then 



220 Sir John Franklin, 

leave the reader to form his own conjectures as to what 
may have occurred. 

It will be remembered, of course, that the first intelli- 
gence of all was obtained in 1850, from the graves on 
Beechey Island. It is noticeable again here only 
because the dates on the tombs conclusively prove an 
error in the record found at Point Victory, where it 
was stated that the ships had wintered at Beechey 
Island in 1846-47. This was merely a clerical error, 
and in the addition to the record signed by Fitzjames 
it was clearly stated that the ships had been beset in 
the winter of 1846-47 near King "William's Island. 
From this, too, we know the date of the departure of 
the crews from the ships in April, 1848, their number — 
105 souls — and the number of deaths which had 
occurred up to that date, including that of Sir John 
Franklin and Commander Gore. But not one word is 
said of the ships having been crushed by the ice. On 
the contrary, they are spoken of as if they were both in 
existence when the crews set out, nor can we doubt 
that this was the case. 

We next come to the intelligence received from the 
Esquimaux by Dr. Eae in 1854, which, though it 
related only to facts subsequent to the facts mentioned 
in the record, was obtained five years before that record 
was found. These Esquimaux informed Dr. Eae, in 
1854, that in the spring, four winters past, while some 
Esquimaux were killing seals near the north end of 



Esquimaux Reports. 221 

King William's Island, about forty white men were 
seen dragging a boat and sledges over the ice on the 
west side of the island. None could speak the Esqui- 
maux language so as to be understood, but by signs 
they gave the natives to understand that their ships 
had been crushed in the ice, and that they 'were going 
where they expected to find deer to shoot. Besides 
some other details mentioned above, but unimportant 
here, they related the discovery of the bodies at the 
estuary of Back's Great Fish Kiver later in the same 
season, but before the disruption of the ice. On this 
we need only remark now that six, not four, winters 
had elapsed in 1854 since this took place, and that 
both ships had certainly not been wrecked, as one 
drifted ashore afterwards, and that the signs given had 
either been meant to describe the ships being beset, or 
that these Esquimaux, having had a share in the 
plunder and destruction of them, wilfully tried to 
mislead Dr. Rae. 

The next information came from Boothian Esqui- 
maux, met by Captain M'Clintock in 1859, near the 
Magnetic Pole. They possessed relics of the expedition, 
which, they said, came from some white people who 
were starved upon an island where there are salmoa ; 
that none of them had seen the white men, bit one 
man had seen their bones; and something was said 
about their boat having been crushed in the ice. 
Subsequently, one of them said that a ship with three 



222 Sir John Franklin. 

masts had been crushed by the ice out in the sea to 
the west of King William's Island, but that all the 
people landed safely. He had not seen it himself, 
but the ship sank, so nothing had been got from her, 
and all the relics had come from the island in the river. 
Not a syllable was said about any ship being driven 
ashore, but, meeting these same Esquimaux a month later, 
Captain M'Clintock was told by one of the young men 
that one ship had sunk in deep water, and another had 
been forced on shore, and that a body of a very large 
man, with long teeth, had been found on this ship. This 
information was, apparently, let out unwillingly, and 
the old man who had given the previous information 
now answered questions about the wrecked ship, of 
which he had made no mention before, evidently 
because he wished to keep Captain M'Clintock in the 
dark. Both of them said that the ships were destroyed 
in the fall of the year, that all the white men went 
away to the large river, and that the wreck probably 
still existed. This Esquimaux not only tried to mis- 
lead Captain M'Clintock, but had lied in saying they 
had got all their relics froni Montreal Island, whereas 
most of them must have come from the wreck. 

A month later, more information was obtained from a 
party of King William's Island Esquimaux, who also 
possessed relics from the wreck, from which, they said, 
they were five days' journey distant. Little of it, they 
said, then remained, and it was without masts. They 



Esquimaux Reports. 223 

laughed while saying this, and spoke to each other 
about fire, from which Petersen concluded that they 
had burnt the masts out of the deck. They said that 
there had been many boats which the weather had 
destroyed — that the ship was forced ashore in the fall 
of the year by the ice, and that they had not visited her 
in the preceding winter. One old woman said the 
white men had dropped by the way as they went to 
the Great Eiver. 

Another party was also met on King William's 
Island. Nothing was gathered from them except some 
additional proof of the untrustworthy nature of Esqui- 
maux reports. Having abundance of wood, which must 
have come from the wreck, they yet denied all know- 
ledge of any white men having died on their shores at 
all. Captain M'Clintock discovered nothing at Montreal 
Island except part of a preserved meat-tin and some iron 
and copper, which, he had reason to think, had been 
part of the plunder of the boat left by some Esquimaux. 
Other relics, lie concluded, from the nature of the coast, 
might have been swept away by the sea. 

We now come to the silent evidence given by the 
relics of the expedition found by Captain M'Clintock 
on King William's Island. But first it must be 
mentioned that there were signs of the cairn at Cape 
Herschel having been pulled down and searched, and it 
is reasonable to conclude that this had been done by 
Esquimaux, who, hearing of the catastrophe at Todd's 



224 Sir John Franklin. 

Island, and of the white men's course along King 
William's Island, had followed up their tracks for some 
distance, and destroyed the record which, we can 
hardly doubt, had been left at the cairn. For some 
distance, it must be noted. Because north of Cape 
Crozier all the relics of the expedition were found lying 
as they had been thrown aside. The Esquimaux would 
never have let alone the boat, and the articles in it and 
at Point Victory, it they had known of them. But as 
either they met the party of forty before the boat was 
abandoned, or were not told of its abandonment, they 
would not expect to find anything by following the 
track of that party. We may conclude, too, that the 
ships had drifted considerably farther south before one 
sank and one drifted ashore " in the fall of the year." 

But what was the import of the boat found by 
Captain M'Clintock being pointed for the return road 
to the ships? This boat was found fifty miles from 
Point Victory, as a sledge would travel, where the coast 
trends sharply away to the eastward from Cape Crozier. 
It was twenty-eight feet long and seven feet three 
inches wide, built lightly, and with a view to a light 
draught — suitable, in fact, for the ascent of the Great 
Fish Eiver, and equipped with paddles and a canvas 
awning, under which men could sleep in rain. The 
weight of the boat was from 700 to 800 pounds, but it 
was mounted on a sledge, which, at the very least, must 
have weighed 650 pounds. The whole weight of sledge 



Relics Found. 225 



and boat was about 1400 pounds, a heavy load for seven 
strong men. Inside the boat were portions of two 
human skeletons — one, much destroyed by wolves, of a 
slight young man, in the bow; the other, under the 
after thwart, enveloped in clothes and furs, and in a 
more perfect state — these were the bones of a man 
older and strongly made. Near the latter were five 
watches and two double-barrelled guns, one barrel in 
each loaded and cocked, standing muzzle upright against 
the boat side. Five or six books, all religious, except 
the " Vicar of Wakefield," were found, one with Gore's 
initials, and an amazing quantity of clothing and mis- 
cellaneous articles, including two rolls of sheet lead, and 
twenty-six silver spoons and forks, which were very 
likely issued to the men for their use as the only way 
of preserving them. There was a little tea and forty 
pounds of chocolate, but no biscuit or meat. There 
was, however, an empty pemmican case, which would 
have held twenty-two pounds. 

These are all the data we have for forming an 
opinio u as to what became of the rest of the two 
crews. Perhaps what happened was this. The weary 
journey to Point Victory must, even thus early, have 
opened the eyes of the travellers to their manifest 
inability to draw the loads which they had brought 
away. After discarding much, they toiled on till first 
one and then another fell behind from weakness. 

Those who remember the facts of Franklin's retreat 
p 



226 Sir John Franklin. 

from the sea to Fort Enterprise can picture to them- 
selves the scene. At last a number would demand 
permission to return to the ships. This is what they 
would have urged to their officers, " You see we are 
rapidly failing. Some are dead already. We shall die 
too if we continue on the journey. If we die of scurvy 
on the ships, where there is at least shelter and salt 
meat, we shall not be worse off. Moreover, the Esqui- 
maux we have seen may help us till summer comes, 
when we shall shoot birds, and may drift down to the 
open water along the coast. Perhaps the ice itself may 
open and set us free. In any case there is the chance 
of our subsisting till you send us help if you escape, as 
you may do if you pick out the strongest men, take 
most of the provisions left in the boats, and press on. 
If it is a poor chance, it is at least better than a certain 
and painful death." Such an appeal would surely have 
been irresistible, and a large party may have gone back 
on the return journey, dragging their boat perhaps part 
of the way, but soon finding it preferable to leave it 
behind, and make the best of their way to the ships ; 
for the dreary nature of the coast and the fearful 
climate, the air of which Captain M'Clintock describes 
as constantly loaded with chilling fogs, would have 
made shelter the one thing which these way-worn 
men would have prized next after wholesome food. 
After this party had gone back, others might have 
fallen weak, and begged to- be allowed to join them. 



Surmises. 227 



Failing to overtake the main body, they would come to 
the boat. Two of them, we may fancy, were too weak 
to go farther, and staying there for the night, after first 
taking precautions to load two guns and place them 
ready to hand, lay down to sleep, never to rise again. 
Some at all events of the return party reached the ships. 
One man, we know, died on board, and was unburied. 

What was the tragedy in which he had been an 
actor ? Did scurvy and famine daily claim their 
victims, who were daily buried with such burial as the 
survivors' strength permitted, till he only remained ? 
Did the return party in their despair make a second 
attempt at escape in the fall of the year? Did the 
Esquimaux come, and, seeing their weak state, slaughter 
them, inventing afterwards the tale of the ship having 
sunk in deep water, when they saw other white men, 
and dreaded their vengeance? Or did most of them 
really perish by the happier fortune of the foundering 
of their ship ? Or, lastly, did any considerable number 
ever reach the ships at all ? These are questions which 
naturally suggest themselves, but to which no satisfactory 
answer can be given. The answers of the Esquimaux 
were suspicious, and their disinclination to tell Captain 
M'Clintock the whole truth palpable. Nor will the 
readers of a previous chapter be reassured by their 
recollection of the experiences of Franklin and Eichard- 
son, when they came upon the Esquimaux in the 
vicinity of the Coppermine River. The state of the 



228 Sir John Franklin. 

ice, too, as described by Captain M'Clintock and others, 
makes the story of a ship sinking in deep water 
surprising. On the other hand, two parties of Esqui- 
maux told the same tale, which is conclusive of its 
truth, unless we imagine that it was set afloat when Dr. 
Eie's enquiries were rumoured from family to family. 
Those, too, whom Captain M'Clintock met, seemed 
friendly, and some had never seen white men before. 
We can only say that, by their own showing, the 
Esquimaux gave our countrymen no help ; that they 
had certainly a large amount of plunder in their 
possession, which they admitted came from the ship 
which was wrecked; that some of their statements 
apparently conflict with the statements of the record 
(viz., that the crews had left in the fall of the year, and 
that they were told that the ships had been crushed in 
the ice); and that it is probable that, if resisted when 
attempting robbery, they would not have scrupled to 
commit murder. But it is quite as reasonable to 
suppose that some of the return party did perish with 
one of the ships which did break up and sink, owing to 
some sudden movement of the ice, and that the others 
perished by disease or starvation, attempting in the fall 
of the year to tread in the steps of their comrades who 
had left them in the spring. 

Here, then, the story of this last expedition of 
Franklin ends. That we know as much as we do 
of its fate is due mainly to the dauntless determina- 
tion of his heroic wife. On Beech ey Island there 
is a flagged square sacred to the dead, but beneath 



Tablet on Beechey Island. 229* 

which no dead lie— all the more impressive, indeed, 
because its earth is tenantless, and perhaps more 
suggestive of pathetic memories than any burial-place 
in the world. There are inscribed the names of the 
men who died in Sir Edward Belcher's expedition in 
search of Franklin. There is a tablet to the gallant 
young Frenchman, Bellot. And there stands a marble 
slab sent out by Lady Franklin, and erected by Captain 
M'Ciintock, commemorating the fate of her husband 
and his men. The following is the inscription : — 

To the Memory of 

Franklin, 

Crozier, Fitzjames, 

and all their 

gallant brother officers and faithful 

companions, who have suffered and perished 

in the cause of science and 

the service of their country. 

This Tablet 
is erected near the spot where 

they passed their first Arctic 

winter, and whence they issued 

forth to conquer difficulties or 

To Die. 

It commemorates the grief of their 

admiring countrymen and friends, 

and the anguish, subdued by faith. 

of her who has lost, in the heroic 
leader of the expedition, the most 
devoted and affectionate of 
Husbands. 

"And so He bringeth them unto the 
haven where they would be." 
1855. 



230 Sir John Franklin. 

The record found at Point Victory has often been 
alluded to. Subjoined is a copy of it, minus the printed 
directions, in six languages, to the finder to forward it 
to the Admiralty. 

"28th of May, 1847.— H.M. ships Erebus and Terror 
wintered in the ice in lat. 70° 05' N,, long. 98° 23' W. 
Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island, in lat. 74° 
43' 28" N., long. 91° 39' 15" W., after having ascended 
Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and returned by the west 
side of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding 
the expedition. All well. 

" Party consisting of 2 officers and 6 men left on Monday, 
24th of May, 1847. 

" Gm. Gore, Lieut. 
Chas. F. Des Yceux, Mate." 

The above was written, probably by Lieut. Gore, on 
one of the printed forms furnished by the Admiralty to 
exploring expeditions, and round the margin of it, in 
Capt. Fitzjames's hand, was the following information : — 

"April 25, 1848. — H.M. ships Terror and Erebus were 
deserted on the 22nd April 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, 
having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers 
and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of 
Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37' 42" N., 
long. 98° 41' W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th 
June, 1847; and the total lose by deaths in the expedition 
has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men. 

" Signed, 

F. R. M. Crozier, James Fitzjames. 

Captain and Senior Officer. Captain H.M.S. Erebus" 

In Captain Crozier's hand was written — 

"And start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River." 



Results of Expeditio7is. 231 

- It is no part of the plan of this book to enter into 
any account of the various expeditions sent iu search of 
Franklin. But the enormous additions made to our 
geographical knowledge by Franklin himself, and by 
the expeditions sent in search of him, will be apparent 
at a glance to anyone who takes up a map of the Arctic 
regions as they were known before the journey to the 
Coppermine Kiver, and as they are known now. 

Northwards up Baffin's Bay the entrance to Smith's 
Sound had been sighted, but that was all. All the 
American discoveries were unknown. Westwards, out 
of Baffin's Bay through Lancaster Sound (then marked 
in the maps in full as Sir "John Lancaster's Sound) and 
Barrow Straits, the southern coasts of North Devon, 
Cornwallis Island, Bathurst Island, Byam Martin 
Island, and Melville Island had been traced by Parry, 
and the groups thus partially observed had been 
christened by a name which has been superseded by 
that of its discoverer, and is now forgotten, the IV. th 
Georgian Islands. Prince Patrick's Island had not been 
sighted. On the southern side of the channel up which 
Parry sailed, a small portion of the north of Bank's 
Land had been seen, and so had a small portion of the 
north of North Somerset and of Prince of Wales Land, 
but Victoria Land and Prince Albert Land were undis- 
covered. The northerly entrance to Eegent's Inlet was 
known, and so was Melville Peninsula; but Boothia and 
King William's Land were a blank on the map. Lastly, 



232 Sir John Franklin. 

the outline of the large island now known as Baffin's 
Land was very imperfectly delineated, and it had not 
been discovered that there was a large island to the 
south of it, and a smaller one to the north-west, each 
divided from it only by a narrow strait. 

Proceeding from the islands to the North American 
Continent, we find that from Icy Cape near Bering's 
Straits to Melville Peninsula the whole northern 
seaboard and the inland country for hundreds of miles 
were terra incognita, except where at two points the 
maps were marked "Sea according to M'Kenzie;" "Sea 
according to Hearne." Thus vast are the acquisitions 
to geography which we connect directly or indirectly 
with Franklin. His is the central name round which 
those of all the other discoverers of the first half of the 
nineteenth century clusters. His story is to theirs 
what the main Iliad is to its episodes, however 
brilliant. And, like the Iliad, it is a story which will 
never be forgotten. 

Very much of the interest felt in Franklin's fate was 
assuredly due to his personal character. It is curious, 
therefore, to notice that, from one point of view at least, 
he was throughout his career an unsuccessful man. 
There was something lacking to all the main efforts of 
his life. In his first expedition he failed, and failed 
amid horrible disasters, to reach Eepulse Bay ; but all 
England applauded that failure. In the second he 
failed to reach the point which he had been ordered to 



Franklin s Character. 233 

make for, while his subordinate Kichardson succeeded 
in his allotted share of the enterprise; but honours were 
heaped upon him. when he came home. He was treated 
with much contumely in his Governorship of Tasmania; 
but the Tasmanians thronged to cheer him and bless 
him when he left their shores, and scarcely had he come 
home when he was appointed to his last command. 
Finally, his last expedition ended in his own death, and 
the extinction of the whole party in a catastrophe 
silent, dire, and complete. Bat as a life of failures had 
made him famous, so his death made him immortal. 

Success is so generally accepted as the touchstone of 
merit, that the man whose failures were treated as 
triumphs must have possessed extraordinary qualities. 
And he did possess in an extraordinary degree qualities 
at once simple and great. He was an indefatigable worker, 
without making pharisaic proclamation of his industry. 
He did not take care that his right hand should never 
be ignorant of the acts of his left, nor kept both 
figuratively upraised at the imaginary shortcomings of 
his neighbours, but took his work lightly, while finding 
time for innumerable occupations and cares. He was 
absolutely loyal to his friends, so that men like Back 
and Eichardson, fully his equals, perhaps his superiors 
in some points, would have given their lives for him. 
And there was no pettiness in his loyalty. He knew 
nothing of the small strivings and jealousies which 
make up the interests of small men. He was so 



234 Sir John Franklin. 

tolerant that he won the affections of men who had 
over and over again abused his confidence. As far as 
we can judge from his diary, he never spared himself, 
he never praised himself. He often praised and rarely 
censured others. He was conciliatory, firm, straight- 
forward, and, above all things, just. He might have 
been said to be " full of longsuffering, goodness, gentle- 
ness, faith." Without affectation of generosity, he was 
one of the most generous men that ever breathed, and 
there was in him withal a genuine spice of the knight- 
errant. Such qualities as these, when displayed on a 
striking stage, always enlist the sympathies of English- 
men, and that is why, during his life and after his 
death, they loved and honoured Franklin. 



INDEX 



Adam, 44, 46, 69, 72, 103. 

Aird, 137, 176. 

Akaitcho, 41, 44, 47, 50, 54, 62, 

65, 101. 
Anoethaiyazzeh, 63. 
Anxiety Point, 150. 
Arnold, Dr., 185 
Athabasca Lake, 34. 114. 
Augustus, 54, 62, 68, 83, 90, 118, 

137, 144, 170, 175, 176. 
Aurora Borealis, 24, 

Babbage River, 146. 

Back, Mr. George, 25, 34, 46, 48, 

49, 55, 57, 81, 85, 90, 114, 137, 

139, 169, 175. 
Back Bay, 167. 
Banks, Sir J., 22. 
Baptiste, 121. 
Barendz, 12. 
Barrow, Sir J., 22. 
Bathurst Inlet, 71 ; Cape, 164. 
Beaulieu, 126, 134, 168. 
Beauparlant, 46, 106. 
Beechey, Captain, 152. 

Island, 199. 
Belanger, S., 46, 50, 59, 90. 

J. B., 46, 59, 95. 
Belleau, 46. 
Bennoit, 46, 77. 
Bering's Straits, 11. 
Bethune, Mr., 38. 
Bexley, Cape, 166. 
Birds as almanacks, 60. 
Black meat, 40. 
Bloody Fall, 68, 167. 
Braine, W., 200. 
Brown, Mr. R., 19. 
Buchan, Captain, 12, 22. 



Cameron, Mr., 38. 

Canoe, bark, 41, 115. 

Carlton House, 37. 

Carlsen, Captain, 14. 

Cedar Lake, 33. 

Cliapewee, 172. 

Chipewyan, Fort, 25, 36, 40, 42, 50. 

Clarence River, 147. 

Clark, Mr., 38. 

Clavering, 12. 

Conwoyto, 78. 

Conybeare, Mount, 148. 

Copper Indians, 40. 

,, Mountains, 67. 
Coppermine River, 23, 24, 45, 49, 

6Q, 167. 
Cornwallis, Admiral, 19. 
Coronation Gulf, 166. 
Cournoyee, 46, 59. 
Cracroft River, 78. 
Credit, 46, 79, 84. 
Cree Indians, 34 ; traditions of, 84. 
Cross Lake, 33. 
Crozier, Captain, 192. 
Cumberland House, 28, 30, 34, 

49, 115, 116. 
Currie, Alexander, 137. 

Dance, Sir K , 19. 

Davis' Straits, 22, 25. 

Dease, Mr., 40, 114, 121, 176. 

,, River, 184. 
De Haven, Captain, 199. 
Digge's Island, 27. 
Discoveries, American, 14. 

„ Dutch, 14. 

„ English, 14. 

,, Russian, 14. 

,, Swedish, 14. 



236 



Index. 



Dogs, 57, 133. 
Dolphin, 157. 
Dolphin Straits, 166. 
Drummond, Mr., 114, 116, 171, 

175. 
Dumas, 46, 69. 
Duncan, William, 137, 141. 

EOHEMAMIS, 33. 

Encounter, Point, 161. 
Enterprise, Fort, 49, 69, 70, 90, 

101. 
Esquimaux, 27, 68, 138, 145, 153 

158, 163, 220. 

Fairholme, Lieut., 193 

Felix, Francois, 137. 

Fitzjames, Lieut., 192, 209. 

Flinders, Captain, 18. 

Foggy Island, 149. 

Fontano, 46. 

Forcier, 46, 69. 

Fox River, 30. 

Fotherby, 11. 

Franklin, 16 ; "birth, 17 ; first 
voyage, 18 ; enters navy, 18 ; 
at Copenhagen, 18 ; at Trafal- 
gar, 19 ; at Flushing, New 
Orleans, 20 ; first expedition, 
23 ; first perils, 27 ; start from 
Cumberland House, 36 ; scarcity 
of previsions, 39 ; interview 
with Akaitcho, 44 ; mutiny 
quelled, 47 ; misconduct of Mr. 
Weeks, 51 ; winter occupa- 
tions, 53 ; Akaitcho's whims, 63 ; 
Indians desert, 69 ; food fails, 
70 ; returns, 72 ; terrible suf- 
ferings, 74 ; famine, 76 ; dis- 
cipline and mutiny, 81 ; reaches 
Fort Enterprise, 90 ; returns to 
England, 111; honours, 112; 
married, 112 ; Parry's lecter, 
113 ; leaves Liverpool, 116 ; 
objects of second expedition, 
117; reaches the sea, 123; 
return to foit, 124; letter to 
Murchison, 128 ; expedition 



starts, 137 ; encounter with 
Esquimaux, 140 ; return neces- 
sary, 151 ; arrives at Fort 
Franklin, 155 ; winter occupa- 
tions, 169 ; extreme cold, 169 ; 
sets out for England, 170 ; 
honours conferred, 178 ; second 
marriage, 179 ; Governor of 
Tasmania, 180 ; letter to Mr. 
Barrow, 183 ; leaves Tasmania, 
189; some anecdotes, 191 ; last 
expedition, 191 ; first alarm, 
195 ; rewards offered, 195 ; 
relics at Beechey Island, 199 ; 
his death, 208'; relics, 225; 
results of expedition, 231 ; his 
character, 232. 

Franklin Bav, 165; Fort, 125, 
155, 168. 

Fraser, Mr., 118. 

Fuller, Thomas, 157. 

Gagne, 46, 69. 

Garry Island, 123. 

Gell, Rev. J., 185. 

Gillet, Thomas, 157. 

Good Hope, Fort, 121, 124, 155. 

Gore, Lieut. G., 206, 207. 

Great Bear Lake, 45. 

,, Slave Lake, 28, 43, 4q. 
Green Stockings, 52. 
Griffen, Miss, 179. 

Hall, Captain, 2 J 6. 
Hallom, Eobert, 137. 
Harkness, George, 157. 
Harrowby Bay, 163. 
Harmovy, 26. 
Hartnell, John, 200. 
Hayes River, 28, 29. 
Hepburn, John, 25, 34, 46, 48, 

85, 92, 94, 110. 
Herschel Island, 153. 
Hill Gates, 32. 
Hill River, 30, 31. 
Holey Lake, 32. 
Hood, Mr. Eobert, 25, 29, 34, 42, 

46, 48, 82, 85, 96. 



Index. 



237 



Hood River, 74. 

Hook, The, 62, 67, 70. 

Hudson, 11, 12. 

Hudson's Bay Company, 24, 28, 

114. 
Humpy, 63, 119. 
Huron, Lake, 116. 

Indians, 30, 100, 168 ; Dog Ribs, 
. 132 ; Hare, 121 ; instinct, 171 ; 

Loucheux, 121, 136 ; traditions, 

172. 
Irving, Lieut., 215, 219. 
Isle a la Crosse, 38, 117. 

Jack River, 31. 
Jones' Sound, 22. 
Junius, 54, 62, 65, 68, 83. 

Kendall, Mr., 114, 157, 158, 162; 

Cape, 167. 
Keskanah, 48, 54, 119. 
Knee Lake, 31. 
Knife Portage, 31. 
Koldewej-, 12. 

Lancaster Sound, 23, 196. 
Le Vescomte, Lieut , 215. 
Little Lake, 171 ; River, 34. 
Longlegs, 63. 
Lopstick, 32. 

Macdonald, Neil, 137. 
Mackenzie, Sir A., 24; River, 45, 

137. 
Maitlaud, Cape, 163. 
Marten Lake, 104. 
Mathews, Thomas, 116, 137. 
M'Clintock, Lieut, 216, 221. 
Mc Vicar, Mr., 40, 171. 
Melville Sound, 74. 
M'Duffey, John, 157. 
Michel, 4tf, 94, 98. 
M'Leary, John, 157. 
M'Lellan, John, 157. - 
Money, William, 157. 
Montreal Island, 217. 
Moose Deer Island, 43. 



Moose Factory, 27. 
Munroe, George, 157. 

Nap.es, Captain. 12. 
Nordenskjold, Prof., 11. 
Norman, Port, 120. 
North-East Passage, 11. 
North Polar Passage, 11. 
North- West Passage, 11, 22. 
North-West Company, 28. 
Norway Point, 33. 

Ontario, Lake, 116. 
Ooligbuck, 118, 157, 158. 
Oxford House, 32. 

Painted Stone, 33. 

Parent, 46, 69. 

Parry, Sir E., 12, 16, 23, 113, 191. 
,, Cape, 165. 

Penny, Captain, 199. 

Peltier, 46, 81, 98. 

Perrault, 46, 79, 95. 

Phipps, 11. 

Pierre au Calumet, 39. 

Pine Island Lake, 34. 

Play Green Lake, 33. 

Point Lake, 65, 69. 

Pole, three routes to, 10 ; prob- 
able phvsiography of, 13. 

roole, 11." 

Porden, Miss, 112. 

Portage, 30. 

Prince cf Wales, 25. 

Providence. Fort, 41, 44, 49. 

Prudens, Mr. , 37. 

Rae, Dr., 177, 216, 220. 

Rainy Lake, 116. 

Reliance, 134. 

Resolution, Fort, 119, 171. 

Return Reef, 152. 

Richard's Island, 158. 

Richardson, Dr., 25, 34, 42, 46, 
48, 64, 83, 85, 92, 94, 114, 124, 
135, 157, 165, 168, 171, 175. 

Rock House, 30; Portage, 30. 

Ross, Captain, 22, 199. 



238 



Index. 



Samandre, 46, 48, 99. 
Saskatchawan River, 33, 116. 
Schwatka, Lieut., 217, 219. 
Scoresby, 12, 21 ; letter to Sir J. 

Banks 22. 
Simcoe, Lake, 116. 
Simpson, Mr., 176. 

Fort, 119, 170. 
Slave Lake, 69. 

,, Kiver, 43. 
Sledge, 36. 
Smith Sound, 22. 
Smith, Mr., 40, 42. 
Snow shoes, 37. 
Spence, Eobert, 137. 
Spinks, R., 133, 137, 155. 
Stewart, Archibald, 137, 176, 
St. Germain, 43, 46, 52, 54, 61, 

69, 72, 84. 
Steel River, 29. 
Strahan, Admiral, 19. 
Stuart, Mr. J. , 39. 
St. Vincent, Admiral, 19. 
Superior, Lake, 116. 
Swampy Lake, 31. 

Todd's Island, 217. 
Torrington, John, 200. 
Tripe de roche, 56, 77. 
Trout River, 31 j Fall, 31. 



Turnagain Point, 72. 
Tysoe, Shadrack, 157. 

Union, 157. 
Union Strait, 166. 
Upper Savage Island, 27. 

Vaillant, 46, 81. 
Vivier, Alexis, 137, 140. 

Wager Bay, 59. 

Walnut Shell, 115, 167. 

Wear, 26. 

Weeks, Mr., 51, 54, 55, 102. 

Weepinapannis River, 32. 

Weesakootchakt, 33. 

Wentzel, Mr., 41, 44, 49, 54, 65, 

69, 109. 
Wilberforce Falls, 74. 
William, Fort, 116. 
Williams, Governor, '28, 31, 59. 
Wilson, George, 137, 141. 
Windy Lake, 32. 
Winnipeg, Lake, 33, 116. 
Winter River, 89. 
Wollaston Land, 166. 



Yellow Knife River, 46, 
York Factory, 28. 
York Flats, 27. 



47. 



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